OVERSIGHT HEARING REGARDING THE HEAD START PROGRAM Y 4. ED 8/1:103-11 Oversight Hearing Regarding tke Kea. . . HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR HOUSE OF REPEESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED THIRD CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD IN DOWNEY, CA, APRIL 8, 1993 Serial No. 103-11 Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor tH^«M U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 69-917 •!=;: WASHINGTON : 1993 For sale by the U.S. Government Printing OtTice Superintendent of Documents. Congressional Sales Office, Washington. DC 20402 ISBN 0-16-041169-6 OVERSIGHT HEARING REGARDING THE HEAD START PROGRAM Y 4. ED 8/1:103-11 Oversijht H&ariDg Regarding the Kei. .. HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN EESOURCES OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED THIRD CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD IN DOWNEY. CA, APRIL 8, 1993 Serial No. 103-11 Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor ' '«SSS%»«w,^ *' »«9 "-"^sss^'a*. U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 69-917 ±5 WASHINGTON : 1993 For sale by the U.S. Govemment Printing Office Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402 ISBN 0-16-041169-6 COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR WILLIAM D. FORD, Michigan, Chairman WILLIAM (BILL) CLAY, Missouri GEORGE MILLER, California AUSTIN J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan PAT WILLIAMS, Montana MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California MAJOR R. OWENS, New York THOMAS C. SAWYER, Ohio DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey JOLENE UNSOELD, Washington PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey JACK REED, Rhode Island TIM ROEMER, Indiana ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York XAVIER BECERRA, California ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia GENE GREEN, Texas LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto Rico RON KLINK, Pennsylvania KARAN ENGLISH, Arizona TED STRICKLAND, Ohio RON DE LUGO, Virgin Islands ENI F. H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa SCOTTY BAESLER, Kentucky Patricia F. Rissler, Staff Director Jay Eagen, Minority Staff Director WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin MARGE ROUKEMA, New Jersey STEVE GUNDERSON, Wisconsin RICHARD K. ARMEY, Texas HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois PAUL B. HENRY, Michigan CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina SUSAN MOLINARI, New York BILL BARRETT, Nebraska JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio RANDY "DUKE" CUNNINGHAM, California PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan HOWARD "BUCK" McKEON, California DAN MILLER, Florida •■•■..iMiJi''' ''Subcommittee on Human Resources ■'"'^.•^-."i'^ MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California, Chairman DAL^^* KILDEE, Michigan PAUL B. HENRY, Michigan ROBERT E. ANDREW^, New Jersey SUSAN MOLINARI, New York ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia BILL BARRETT, Nebraska LYNN C. WOOLSEY,' California DAN MILLER, Florida CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto Rico MAJOR R. OWENS, New York SCOTTY BAESLER, Kentucky (n) CONTENTS Page Hearing held in Downey, CA, April 8, 1993 1 Statement of: Brummel, Judy, Program Manager, Kern County Head Start Program, Bakersfield, CA; Norma Hollis, Executive Director, accompanied by Alma Romo, Participant, Frederick Douglass Child Development Center, Los Angeles, CA; Clifford Marcussen, Executive Director, ac- companied by Pauline Abu-Tayeh, Participant, OPTIONS Head Start, South El Monte, CA; Lynn Harris, Program Director, accompanied by Participant, Charles Drew Head Start, Compton, CA; and Jo Navarro, Field Representative, Early Childhood Development, American Federa- tion of Teachers, Burbank, CA 32 Gothold, Stuart, Superintendent, and Andrew Kennedy, Director of Head Start, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Los Angeles, CA; and Hortense Hunn, Executive Director, Preschool Services Department, San Bernardino County, San Bernardino, CA 4 Prepared statements, letters, supplemental materials, et cetera: Abu-Tayeh, Pauline, Participant, Options Head Start, South El Monte, CA, prepared statement of 54 Brummel, Judy, Program Manager, Kern County Head Start Program, Bakersfield, CA, prepared statement of 35 Harris, Lynn, Director, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Project Head Start, prepared statement of 59 Hollis, Norma, Executive Director, Frederick Douglass Child Develop- ment Center, Los Angeles, CA, prepared statement of 40 Hunn, Hortense, Executive Director, Preschool Services Department, San Bernardino County, CA, prepared statement of 88 Kennedy, Andrew, Director of Head Start, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Los Angeles, CA, prepared statement of 11 Marcussen, Cliff C, Executive Director, Options — A Child Care and Hunan Services, Los Angeles County, CA, prepared statement of 50 Navarro, Jo, Field Representative, Early Childhood Federation, Local 1475, AFT, AFL-CIO, prepared statement of 66 (III) OVERSIGHT HEARING REGARDING THE HEAD START PROGRAM THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1993 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Education and Labor, Downey, CA. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, in Council Chambers at the Los Angeles, California, County Office of Education, 9300 Imperial Highway, Downey, California, at 9:06 a.m., Hon. Matthew G. Martinez, Chairman, presiding. Members present: Representatives Martinez, Scott, and Owens. Staff present: Lester H. Sweeting, staff director/counsel; Terry Deshler, legislative analyst; and Alan Lopatin, general counsel. Chairman Martinez. Let me begin by saying good morning. We are the Subcommittee of Human Resources of the House Education and Labor Committee, and today we are holding the first in a series of hearings to look into the Head Start program. These hear- ings are particularly important as Congress begins to deal with the issues arising from the need to reauthorize this program during this Congress. Although the current authorization of the Head Start Act does not expire until September 30 of 1994, the visibility and importance of this program is such that we believe we need to fully investigate all aspects of the system so that we can ensure that necessary changes to ensure the quality of all Head Start programs at the local level are addressed in the reauthorization process. President Clinton has called for substantially increased funding for Head Start. He and I and members of the committee agree that this is an investment in a precious resource, our young people. Education goal number one says that by the year 2000 all chil- dren will reach school ready and able to learn. Head Start is one way of ensuring that that goal is met. In its 28-year history. Head Start has shown that through early intervention in the lives of youngsters coupled with the right range of attendant services in- cluded in the Head Start program, that we can make a real differ- ence to the lives of those youngsters and their families. I and my colleagues believe very strongly in Head Start. We have watched it grow. We have monitored its progress and have taken action to encourage its continued existence. We have contin- ually supported increased resources for the program by both Re- publican and Democratic administrations because we see real value in this program. (1) That does not mean however that we have or will continue to throw money blindly at the program. We are deeply concerned that Head Start grantees and Head Start centers are able to maximize the use of additional funding and service all of the children who need these services. In the last Congress we were told of significant problems in some Head Start programs because they could not secure permanent fa- cilities or even adequate facilities under the rules as they stood them. I authored the Head Start Improvement Act of 1992, which con- tained a provision allowing Head Start programs to purchase their facilities and ensure permanence and an ability to expand pro- grams. We will hold hearings this year to address the implementa- tion of that law and we will take action if further action is needed to ensure that all States and all local grantees are able to use the funding available wisely and effectively to achieve program objec- tives. We have seen numerous stories in the press about the quality of Head Start. We will continue to look at the issue of quality and program design and execution. Where we can take action to facili- tate quality, we shall. Where action needs to be taken by the De- partment we will continue to monitor those activities through the Oversight Process which is our responsibility. We will hear from two panels of witnesses today. Our first panel consists of two representatives, county government grantees, who are the entities that manage groups of Head Start facilities. Grant- ees are the link between the Federal program managers and the local Head Start centers and as such bring a special viewpoint to this discussion. Representing the Los Angeles County Office of Education and our hosts today are Stuart Gothold and Andrew Kennedy, and from the San Bernardino School Department, Preschool Services, we have Ms. Hortense Hunn. Our second panel consists of participants and providers. From the Kern County Head Start program we have Ms. Judy Brummel. We will also hear from Lynn Harris of the Charles Drew Head Start, Norma Hollis of the Frederick Douglass Child Development Center, and Clifford Marcussen of OPTIONS Head Start. Each of these latter witnesses has brought someone with her or him and I hope you will introduce your associate teacher or board member, parent or volunteer or graduate when you begin your statement. Finally, I have asked Ms. Jo Navarro of the American Federa- tion of Teachers to present testimony here as well. I am happy to be joined by two of my distinguished colleagues in the House of Representatives today. Congressman Major Owens of New York, who is Chairman of the Select Education and Civil Rights Subcommittee, who is also a member of this committee, and as a Chairman of that committee we have joint responsibility on the Action program, this committee having the joint jurisdiction with Title II. I am delighted to have the Chairman of that commit- tee on this committee, ensuring us better working cooperation. We are also joined by a gentleman who is new to Congress but not inexperienced. He served in his own State legislature. His name is Mr. Robert Scott. We call him Bobby, and he is of Norfolk, Virginia, and he is just a freshman and the first Black Congress- man from that State in this century. Although he is new to Con- gress, as I said earlier, Bobby and I have discussed the issues pre- sented by Head Start and I know that his knowledge, interest and commitment to the program will be felt throughout the reauthor- ization process. Would either of you like to make a statement at this time? Major Owens? Mr. Owens. Mr. Chairman, I have no opening statement to make. I'd just like to say that I am pleased to be here. The prob- lems faced by the Los Angeles area Head Start programs are prob- ably very similar to those faced by the programs in New York City, so I am pleased to be here to hear from you and to learn. We might jointly work together to make certain that the President's new ini- tiatives with respect to Head Start really mean real concrete im- provements in the program that will benefit the people who are most important to Head Start and that's the children. Thank you very much for inviting me. Chairman Martinez. Thank you. Major Owens. Mr. Scott? Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to express my ap- preciation to you for calling the meeting. This is a very important issue and one that a lot of people are looking at today. I also want to congratulate you for the hard work that you have done. As some people know, we have abolished the Select Commit- tee on Children, Youth and Families, and this Subcommittee on Human Resources will therefore take on much more responsibility, and fortunately, under your leadership, I think the issues involving children, youth and families will be well served. One of the problems that we have in government generally is the fact that prevention programs generally have no constituency. People always wait until after the fact to try to cure problems and Head Start is one of the few prevention programs that has got any reasonable level of support at all. We have an opportunity under the reauthorization to make sure that this program gets the best we can for the dollars we put into it. Some of the programs have been extremely successful and some, as you have mentioned, have not performed to the degree that we would like. One of the problems is evaluation. We have not had the long- term evaluations that we should. There are a few studies but to the extent that we can get more evaluations to show how good a pro- gram it is, I think we'll be much better served. Some of the programs, as you indicated, are better than others and to the extent that we can find those components of that make a good program, I think we can — and make sure that those get into all of the programs, we can use this reauthorization process to im- prove early childhood education generally. I look forward to those who will be testifying to help us in our responsibility of reauthorizing Head Start. Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Scott. At this time I would like to start the testimony with someone who over the years that I have served in Congress has become more than just an associate in problems that deal with education and the future of our children, but has become a friend and confi- dant to me on some of the problems that we've had throughout my district I have been able to seek his advice and counsel and I am delighted to have him here this morning, Mr. Gothold. STATEMENTS OF STUART GOTHOLD, SUPERINTENDENT, AND ANDREW KENNEDY, DIRECTOR OF HEAD START, LOS ANGELES COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA; AND HORTENSE HUNN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PRESCHOOL SERVICES DEPARTMENT, SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY, SAN BER- NARDINO, CALIFORNIA Mr. Gothold. Thank you, Chairman Martinez, Congressman Owens, Congressman Scott. Welcome to Los Angeles County and welcome to the Los Angeles County Office of Education. We are pleased to serve as your host this morning but we are especially pleased to serve as the grantee for one of the Nation's largest Head Start programs. Rather than give you personal testi- mony in response to the questions that you have raised, Andrew Kennedy is here, who is the Director of our programs, and he will give you greater detail and certainly greater experience in the areas that I know you are concerned about. I would like to make only one comment and then offer the re- sources of this Office to you the balance of this hearing and for any followup that you wish from us. My comment underscores some of the points that Mr. Kennedy will raise in response to your questions and it has to do with what is before us, the awesome opportunity but the awesome responsibil- ity. As I said, we are already one of the Nation's largest grantees. Expansion is welcome simply because we are serving a relatively small percentage of the eligible youngsters now and we know that Head Start truly makes a difference. I think my concern as an administrator revolves around making the resources available in a timely manner so that we as a grantee can carry out our responsibilities first of all to implement expan- sion in a timely manner, to provide the technical assistance, and you mentioned earlier the problems with facilities. Facilities, pro- grams, staffing — all must be done in a quality manner or individ- ual delegate agencies won't have the support that they need. Our monitoring responsibilities, as you will hear later in the testimony, are extremely important. That has to be done thoughtfully and carefully. Sometimes when a rapid expansion occurs, we are so con- cerned about getting things open that we are not concerned about getting things open in a quality manner. Then we don't have the data that you require about the effectivness of the programs. As I say, I am looking at it narrowly. Andrew will talk about a lot of other areas in response to your questions, but as an adminis- trator and as an administrator in California public education where resources have become extremely tight, we have had to dis- cipline ourselves to maintain the focus on ''if we can't do every- thing, let's be sure that what we do is of first quality." That way our credibility is not at stake at the same time as the results that we all seek. We are pleased to be involved in this most important area of services to children and we are pleased at the interest of your com- mittee and want to work with you to ensure that quality that we all desire. Again, welcome. Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Gothold. With that, we'll turn to someone I met for the first time yester- day afternoon and I want to tell you right now I was very delighted in what you had to say, because it coincides so much with some of the comments I have heard from my colleagues in Congress both in the committee, subcommittee and the full committee and then other Members of Congress in general. I am looking forward to the testimony you are giving today and I am really delighted too that my two colleagues, Major Owens and Mr. Scott, are here to share with you the thoughts we shared last night, so Mr. Kennedy, would you start? Mr. Kennedy. Thank you. I am pleased to have the opportunity to be able to share LA County's perceptions of the bigger picture of Head Start and we think we are clearly a big picture. In LA County we serve both small district areas. We have approximately 14 school districts who have Head Start programs who interact with us and approximately 14 private nonprofit community-based organizations who also effectively operate Head Start programs, and of course we are one of those multi-cultural, very wide, diverse communities where you have from Korean communities to Hispan- ic communities to Black communities to predominantly White com- munities all within the Head Start program who are interacting, integrating with each other. I would like to start with your Question H that you had there — what changes would you make to the program? In the Los Angeles County area, and I think across the Nation, if you are seeking quality, and I think quality was one of your state- ments, is that to enroll younger children with multiple years to us will bring a greater level of quality. We are looking at that because of the large population only serving them a year at a time. We do not have the opportunity because there are so many kids to serve them on a longer period of time, so in looking at the quality ques- tion, we would like to look at the whole concept of going slow to go fast— take time to build, give us an opportunity to take time at the local level and at the regional levels to develop a model that will serve kids of a longer period of time rather than the short 1 year before getting them prepared into going into the K-12 system. The other thing we would like to look at is something that is going on in more collaborative types of grant opportunities or interactions and I am talking about collaboration maybe from a three-way point of view, from the regional offices connected with the State Departments of Education, however they may work there, including also shared decisionmaking with the local grant- ees, giving them an opportunity to share on those types of task force so you have buy-in at your local level, you have your regional involvement, and you also have your State interaction. The reason it would work well with us in our particular area is because we have a lot of what we call co-located settings where you have State preschools and Head Start programs on the same site. State benefits by having a Head Start program there because the 6 kids at State preschools receive a higher quality of service because the regulations for Head Start offer a lot more than the State pres- chools can offer, and at the same time you get a cross fertilization of kids who are at a higher economic level, which allows the lowest level of income kids to have another group of kids to interact with them, which I think is probably the ultimate goal to make it possi- ble for kids at all economic levels to interact with each other so they can feel more comfortable as they enter the K-12 system. The other area we are looking at is year-around summer types of programs. These are major changes that are going on, I think, if we are going to look for full service programs then I am looking at maybe Head Start that will go 12 months. Head Start that will offer a long-term planning model that will allow our delegate agen- cies and other grantees to plan for a year. That means training and preparation for IDAs to serve a larger body of kids for a longer period of time is needed. Along with the whole idea of bringing quality is moving toward technology of course, and coming from LA County who has a lot of the distance learning program models, I am hoping that in the new regulations or the way to look to Head Start you will get on the cutting edge also of looking at distance learning. You start looking at home base and other center based programs that may need to change the way they do business to serve a higher population. We have approximately 113,00 kids. Only about 12-15 percent of those kids are being served. There are ways to start cutting through that population by having some distance learning types of programs that would at least maybe do the first cut, those families that are at home with multiple size families who only have one or two kids in Head Start, by having partnerships with cable companies. Having partnerships with distance learning programs, you can bring Channel 58 into many kids' homes or whatever the channel is, and that way they get a pre-Head Start type of training, a liter- acy based program. It could be unemployment- or employment- based training program for the parents who are watching, some- thing that would buy in the kids and the families because we see and we know the intentions of Head Start is to strengthen the family as you strengthen the youth and as you are aware, all the statistics show that if you want to improve a child at the preschool level or even at the elementary level, you also have to improve the education and the goals and expectations of the parents. This might be a way that we proceed to effectively start address- ing both of those at the same time. In addition, a great need is if we want to train the youth to advance themselves, we want to strengthen our curriculums not only for the kids but also for the parents. One way of doing that we were looking at is by providing extended care, child care. Child care should be I think tied directly to Head Start. There should be dollars or program policies that say if you have a Head Start program there should be a natural partnership with a child- care program that can make it possible for the parents who have a lot of kids who are not Head Start ready or who are older to be able to help serve, take care of their kids while they go back to education or whether they improve for the job training for them- selves. When I had the opportunity to work with GAIN, the Greater Avenues toward Independence, as to workforce programs, that was always one of the things that we were always concerned about is how can you provide health care and child care and those types of things for the parents who are being trained under GAIN to enter the workforce when their kids are not being taken care of? So that is naturally a need that we see. More transitional programs with the K-12 system — there seems to be a stigma sometimes laid on Head Start kids. You come from Head Start, you move into the K-12 system, and oftentimes the tracking system that we have in our public education systems or in other types of programs will identify these kids — they have had an opportunity to prepare themselves but we label them as Head Start, as though that is causing them to be a disenfranchised group who don't have the same advantages of other kids, so if there is a higher collaborative relationship between preschool programs, childcare programs, and K-6 programs you are going to cut through some of those stereotypes and labeling and tracking that these kids are caught up in when they first start, as well as the parents. In the Head Start program the parents are directly involved in decisionmaking. In the K-12 structure, they are not in the decision- making roles. They are in the advisory roles, so even that reduces the effectiveness of having parent involvement in your elementary and secondary programs, and if there is going to be truly at some level a shared decision about the impact and the growth of these kids and their families, then both the preschool Head Start model integrating with your K-12 models need to become more and more related to each other. One great need of course is as we expand there needs to be a stronger emphasis from the States and maybe shared decisionmak- ing at the Federal level to help improve the way licensing is done in the Head Start business. We can go out and try to find facilities but once you find facilities it might take another long period of time and it could take you 6 months to a year to get a solid facility and for expansion. During that whole period, there is a licensing period. That is another level of delay in order to be able to expand in an effective way to bring more kids on, so more State and local and Federal influence on collaboration or on getting licensing done is needed. I think, if there is a licensing unit that is tied directly to the Head Start expansion move you probably will see facilities and programs started up a lot faster and brought into the Head Start model sooner. The other area that I would like to just touch on is that I think you are moving Head Start toward the 21st century with the whole idea of the Family Service Center model, because there you are automatically starting to acknowledge that parents are important too, that it's not just the children, that parents have barriers that reduce their ability for self-sufficiency and success. If parents' abili- ty for success is limited, then their children's ability for success is limited, so with the Family Service Center model as I have been able to experience and see and we are going to be opening up three 8 in LA County office area, in LA county and ours is special because ours is after the wake of the uprising or the riot, however we want to call it. It still has a significance in bringing parents who were caught up in that particular conflict, social unrest, to be able to start addressing their personal needs. The Family Service Center is going to allow us to look at some other strands that Head Start is all about, looking at unemploy- ment in a more serious way and doing the collaboration with com- munity agencies, that's going to make that possible for strength of those parents and those families. The other part that seems to be very important is we're acknowl- edging substance abuse. Head Start has always seemed to have had substance abuse related grants. We have a program which is called STAR, which is basically a substance abuse training and referral which we train teachers to do early identification of parents or identify in our ART program, which is an assessment referral proc- ess, the perennial substance abuse population that seems to be be- coming more and more involved in our Head Start programs. A substance abuse referral part is very important but this is saying we are looking at barriers that prevent people from becom- ing successful and self-sufficient and Head Start seems to be moving greatly in that direction. Then also you are identifying the literacy part. There seems to be a lot of literacy programs that are going on, so I ask again in this opportunity to share with you that at the Feder- al level there should be some kind of directory of childcare types of services and literacy program services and youth services that are going on that will allow a menu of programs to be sent to your re- gional and eventually to your local levels, so that more collabora- tion can take place rather than a lot of duplication of services and people having their sacred grounds and sacred territories and not being able to cross in to help each other, which frustrates the whole community effort in providing quality services to the kids and their families. As a grantee, we have an opportunity to work with a multi- agency approach. I would think that with our delegate agencies too in their communities it's our desire for them to work with a multi- agency approach. This Family Service Center model linked in under Head Start now will allow us to do that more, so I hope the support of Head Start and Family Service Centers, as Wade Horn said when he left and I happened to be there that it is going to become institutionalized as part of Head Start, so I support that. The last part that I would like to share a little more on is that as a grantee there is a greater emphasis on accountability and through a comprehensive monitoring system and I think that not only does the comprehensive monitoring system require us now to direct a more proactive way of helping our agencies to become ac- countable as to how they provide services but it also will now need to focus more on helping agencies develop their own way of moni- toring themselves and evaluating themselves in both a formative and a summative type of way so we can get more data on what is working at a sooner level, a sooner time. There is another part of that picture of the emerging process that I would like to mention. When I am talking about monitoring I am also talking about working in collaboration with regional of- fices and local offices to develop the monitoring together, so that when things are occurring that are very positive there is a system of rewarding and acknowledging successes and when things aren't working well, there is a system of working more collaboratively to provide a higher level of technical assistance at all levels. Another area that we know is very important is the parent edu- cation, career development and leadership for parents loop. As I have stated several times, as you attempt to develop the youth to prepare them for the 21st century, you also have to develop the parents, not only in the parenting skills but also leadership, leader- ship that will allow them to be able to work with the bureaucracy that will give them an opportunity to be advocates for their kids, advocates for the types of things that are going to make their fami- lies and their children more successful in our society. I would like you to consider the idea of putting some type of in- novative programs unit to the Head Start legislation or reauthor- ization. In expansion we know that we've done a lot for the last 25 years in Head Start but now we are moving for a 21st century with higher technology, higher levels of people who need human rela- tions skills and training, more collaboration as the hue and cry is — we need to all integrate a little bit more to provide higher quality services. But the Head Start regulations as they are makes it diffi- cult for you to come up with innovative types of projects that are going to be more acceptable, so even maybe in the legislation there could be some kind of statement or some kind of direction that will allow part or 5 or 10 percent of the dollars you receive to be used to develop innovative projects. You are not going to lose anything because you have a quality based program already. What you are going to do is increase the opportunity to do busi- ness a little bit differently that is going to allow us to access more families, access more kids. It's going to allow us to strengthen some of our thinking skills, brain-based research on how we impact people in learning, impact community development — all of these types of things. Head Start is deeply involved in the grassroots in most organizations and communities but since they are at this grassroots common ground level, in order for them to move for- ward they need to take what they are learning from the communi- ty and be able to reposition it into some type of research base that will allow them to come forward with some new ideas that will hopefully, 5 or 10 years from now, tell us something about how Head Start can make a difference in our society. The current model does have some flexibility. There is a need for just more flexibility built in so that you can have some of the new things that are being offered and you can allow different programs to practice some new types of things that they there going on in the research. You are allowing, right through this summer-based program that is coming down, for us to take a look at immunization a little bit more. Head Start has always been involved in that. I think a con- stant emphasis on the health component aspect of the Head Start program is greatly needed. Going back to my innovation concept, you have a large homeless population that is impacting Head Start and Head Start has not 10 normally had a procedure to address the homeless population, so if that is going to be a part of our script, that group of people we are going to need to deal with more, then we need to have an opportu- nity to develop some innovative ways of working with them. Cultural diversity — I'm sure that's a part of your agenda and that is another part that will allow us in innovative programs to look at the multicultural whole language culture diversity model that we are looking at. Finally, I would like to end with Head Start, GAIN, JTPA, Child Care Block Grants, all of those types of projects that are going on and programs, need to work more closely together both at the Fed- eral and State level so that the local level can have a model or process by which to work more closely with each other to reduce duplication of services and strengthen the quality of services to you. [The prepared statement of Andrew Kennedy follows:] 11 TESTIMONY TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES LOS COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION HEAD START/STATE-PRESCHOOL GRANTEE ANDREW KENNEDY, Senior Project Director A. HOW HAVE YOUR SERVICES CHANGED IN THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS? • Change from single center to home base options to double and tri-sessions • The change in demographics and the increase in substance abuse, gang violence, civil unrest, hate crimes, unemployment, homelessness , and single parent families, etc., has had a tremendous impact on the way we provide services • Comprehensive Curriculum Programs which address, Substance Abuse Training and Referral (STAR) and Assessment and Referral Training (ART Project) both programs dealing with substance abuse (Program descriptions attached); Preschool Child Abuse Prevention Programs; Spousal Abuse Prevention, Illiteracy and Employment training. Comprehensive Multi- cultural Educational Programs and Anti Bias Curriculum. The change seems to be based on our enhanced and further development of parenting/adult education services • Parenting education/Career Development/Leadership for parents • Comprehensive monitoring of delegate agencies to assure quality services and accountability • More training and technical assistance to ensure compliance with Federal Regulations and Performance Standards B. IN WHAT WAYS HAVE RECENT EXPANSIONS AFFECTED YOUR PROGRAM? • Go slow to go fast, for the past four years we have been expanding so rapidly, the time has come to go slow in order to ensure quality programs • A challenge to find appropriate and affordable facilities in the communities • A challenge in finding qualified teachers to work for Head Start salaries • A challenge in finding staff that reflect the multi ethnic communities served • Having to retrain staff to work with children and families due to the many changing social issues which affect families (for example, Mental Health, Health issues, etc.) • Need for leadership training in new areas of collaboration, conflict resolution, organizational restructuring, and partnership development • Need training for Board of Directors, Policy Council, Executive Board and staff C. WHAT STEPS HAVE YOU TAKEN TO ENSURE THE QUALITY OF SERVICES YOU DELIVER GIVEN THE EXPANSION? • Developed a comprehensive monitoring plan linking fiscal with program to ensure more accountability and the quality of services • Restructure Head Start Grantee to address problems of the 21 st Century to support high risk families and youth • Strengthen contractual agreements with delegate agencies • Increase community relationships with community based sen/ice providers 12 Offering innovative programs to meet the changing needs and keep quality of services to families. The following programs are but a few projects that are being implemented at this time in Los Angeles County: ART Project Description Assessment, Referral, and Training Los Angeles is one of eight target cities in the nation where Head Start and substance abuse programs work together to treat and prevent abuse and its effects on children. Through the ART project, four-year-old children whose parents are receiving treatment through Los Angeles County Alcohol and Drug Program agencies are enrolled in Head Start. Head Start staff will be trained to identify signs of possible substance abuse and to understand the resources that are available through participating alcohol and drug treatment programs. Through the three-year ART and STAR programs, Head Start staff are trained to work with substance-affected children in their classrooms. Parent education will be an integral part of this project. STAR Project Description Substance Abuse Training Referral STAR is a three-year substance abuse training project directed at Head Start classroom and support services staff. Funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, the project will train up to 80 Head Start staff during each of the three years. An interdisciplinary team of local and nationally recognized experts will provide 40 hours of intensive training and experience in the following areas: identification of the signs and symptoms of abuse, understanding the impact of drugs and alcohol on all levels of society, recognizing and understanding the impact of drugs and alcohol on the parenting ability of the caretaker, recognition of the medical and developmental problems which may result from parinatal substance abuse, and strategies for intervening in the classroom and home with children and adults. Monthly training sessions and classroom observation will reinforce skill development and learning. Workshops for parents are also planned. An advisory committee which includes representatives of the treatment community will provide guidance to the project on networking with treatment and referral resources. STAR and ART project staff work together to share training activities and to extend training to the largest possible number of Head Start agencies and staff. Los Angeles County Target Cities Project Description The Los Angeles County Target Cities Project is a collaborative effort involving the County of Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles, the California State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, the Federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and private outpatient drug treatment programs. The goal of the Los Angeles County Target Cities project is to reduce client drop-out and relapse rates by improving the quality and effectiveness of outpatient drug abuse treatment and recovery services in the City of Los Angeles. 13 Family Service Center Los Angeles County Office of Education in FY 1992 was awarded a special FSC demonstration grant for $3,000,000 to serve 1,000 families in the riot-torn target area of Los Angeles County, as part of the "Weed and Seed" initiative supported by DHHS. Head Start agencies which have applied for these funds were required to have already developed an approach and activities to address problems in one of the three focus areas of illiteracy, substance abuse or unemployment. In addition. Head Start program applicants were required to have a comprehensive needs assessment strategy in place, to use a case management approach to working with families, and to have already established collaboration/linkages with other community agencies. The main objectives of the FSC projects are to strengthen Head Start's family support capacity in at least two ways. One objective is to build on existing program features and develop effective strategies for collaboration between Head Start programs and community agencies in order to address problems of substance abuse, illiteracy and unemployment. The second objective is to implement a more intensive case management system for working with families than is possible in the regular Head Start program. These Family Service Center Demonstration Projects are expected to result in the design and testing of innovative approaches to: 1) identifying problems of Head Start families, including staff training in understanding and detecting families' needs; 2) motivating family members to take steps to address their own problems and help themselves; 3) linking families with appropriate community services; and 4) supporting families as they work towards solving problems and meeting their own needs. Head Start Social Services Institute This is a two year Training partnership between the California State University of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County Office of Education Social Services using the ACF Social Services Manual to enable the Social Services component to meet its objectives and improve the quality of service delivery to Head Start children and their families. As such, the two year Training Institute will actively utilize and integrate the Manual to provide a framework for training Social Services component staff in the skills they need to ensure that children and families in the program receive the comprehensive array of services they require. It is expected that Head Start Social Service staff and parents participating in this program will move actively to upgrade their academic credentials. Progress should be made toward the AA and BA degree levels as part of, and apart from, this Social Services Training Institute. As such, institute enrollees are strongly encouraged to satisfactorily complete college entry-level courses in: English, Psychology, Sociology, and Critical Thinking. 14 It is intended that this two year Training Institute will actively involve parents in the training throughout the process. As well, the Training Institute is envisioned as providing career ladder opportunities for the participants via progress toward the achievement of the AA Degree, the four year degree in social work at CSLA (BASW) or at another university, the completion of training with the ACF Training Manual, and the satisfactory completion of the CSLA Credit Certificate Program in Social Services. Head Start Health Component The changes occurring within the Head Start Program are presenting challenges in the area of new health staffing, availability of additional quality medical and dental providers, upgrading and retraining present staff so they will be able to enter the 21st with confidence. In the area of new health staff, we are presently working with 5 community nursing programs in presenting a Career in Nursing Program for parents and staff as a means of developing a future pool of qualified health staff. We are expanding our Health and Handicap Advisory and Dental Boards by inviting the community medical and dental consultants to participate with hopes that this will assist us in our recruiting efforts and also enable us to become more aware of community health issues and needs. Upgrading and retraining of present health staff is being accomplished by implementing 2 meetings a year for health assistants that will keep them current on changing health requirements and to encourage them to prepare themselves for the computerization of the health component. We have a small committee of health coordinators who are in the process of setting up a meeting with other regional health coordinators to plan, organize and present a conference for this region to address health related issues . D. HOW DO YOU SEE FUTURE EXPANSIONS AFFECTING THE WAY YOU DELIVER SERVICES? 1 . Critical need to provide staff development for Board of Directors, Policy Council, Executive Board and staff 2. Due to lack of facilities, need to look at other options to serve families 2.1. Double/triple sessions 2.2. Evening program 2.3 Home Based 2.4 Operating classes on weekends 2.5 Summer program 2.6 Year round school 2.7 Wrap around 2.8 More collaboration with other agencies 2.9 Serving younger children 2.10 Multiple years of Head Start 2.1 1 More collaboration with K-6 3. Development of Child Care services for the Family Service Center 15 E. WHAT TRENDS DO YOU SEE IN THE HEAD START PROGRAM THAT WILL REQUIRE YOU TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU RUN YOUR PROGRAMS? We have identified ten major trends that have caused us to change the way we run our programs: 1 . Increased number of children are exposed to drugs, violence and abuse in their own homes and communities. 2. Head Start staff fear making the required home visits due to increasing violence in all communities.. 3. Health problems (HIV and T.B.) lack of immunization. 4. Unemployment contributes to an increase in the problem of child and spousal abuse. 5. Homelessness population impacts Head Start. 7. increasing services for special needs children 8. Cultural conflicts and community civil unrest. 9. Illiteracy 10. Need for more collaboration. F. HOW DO YOU COORDINATE WITH OTHER FEDERAL OR STATE PROGRAMS THAT ALSO SERVE LOW-INCOME CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES? LACOE collocates Head Start and State Preschool programs The Head Start Assessment and referral drug related project is linked with Los Angeles County Alcohol and Drug Program LACOE coordinates with local state universities to provide continuing education courses to staff and parents LACOE coordinates workshops on State licensing Designated component staff serve on County and State wide Advisory Boards Recruitment for the enrollment of low income children is a coordinated effort between LACOE Head Start Grantee and seven other grantees in the county with the Department of Social Services. Recruitment information flyers are mailed out twice a year with AFDC warrants 16 H. WHAT CHANGES WOULD YOU MAKE TO THE PROGRAM TO BETTER SERVE THE POPULATION? • Enroll younger children/multiple years • Wrap around programs (before and after school child care) Child care for parents in school or job training programs • To serve all eligible children • Year round/summer programs • Full day programs • Home Based programs • More Family Service Centers • More transition programs/Broaden relationship between preschool and K-6* The Head Start Assessment and referral drug related project is linked with • Los Angeles County Alcohol and Drug Program • LACOE coordinates with local state universities to provide continuing education courses to staff and parents • LACOE coordinates workshops on State licensing • Designated component staff serve on County and State wide Advisory Boards 5/8/93 17 93^1 EPW Januaiy 22, 1993 CRS Report for Congress Congressional Research Service • Tr.e Library of Congi-ess Head Start: A Fact Sheet Anne Stewart Education and Public Welfare Division Head Start provideB comprehensive early childhood development, educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to primarily low-income preschool children and their families. Such services are intended to improve the conditions necessary for a child's success in later school and life. Head Start emphasizes the involvement of parents and local communities in the development and operation of individual Head Start programs. Flexibility is encouraged in local program design to meet specific community needs. As a result, there is wide variation across the country in how Head Start services are delivered (e.g., center-based, home-based, or some combination) as well as in local program costs, and sponsoring agencies. In general, Head Start operates a part-day program during the school year and is therefore not a sole source of child day care for working families. In some areas, Head Start coordinates with other programs to provide a full day of care. Head Start is administered by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). It is one of a few programs created in the 1960s as part of the Federal Government's "war on poverty" effort that still exists largely in its original form. It has enjoyed bipartisan support since its inception. In recent years, different proposals to "fully fund" Head Start to cover all eligible children have been advocated by the Bush Administration, President Chnton during his campaign, members of Congress and children's advocacy groups. Funding. Unlike some other Federal social service programs which are funded through the States, DHHS awards Head Start grants directly to local agencies. Grantees must contribute 20 percent of program costs from non-Federal funds, unless they are granted a waiver from DHHS. Funds are awarded to grantees at the discretion of DHHS from State allocations determined by a formula in law. Under the formula, certain amounts are set-aside for specified activities, including training and technical assistance, teacher salan- increases, services for handicapped children, and programs operated for Indian and migrant children. Fundi remaining after the set-asides are distributed among States based on a formula in which each State receives a base amount equal to the amount it received in FY 1981. After the base amounts are distributed, remaining funds are allocated according to each State's share of children under age 18 in families receiving welfare assistance and each State's share of poor children under age 6. Eligibility. Head Start is targeted by law to low income children. Regulations require that 90 percent of Head Start Funding (In inlllloiu) Year Anther. Appro. 1980 asan* $ 735 1985 t 1,093 1,075 1986 1,221 1,040 1987 1,198 1,131 1988 1.263 1,206 1989 1,332 1,235 1990 1,552 1.552 1991 2,386 1.952 1992 4,273 2,202 1993 6,924 2.779 1994 7,660 •such sums as perfwinry CR: CRS Kiports an prepared for Members and runiiiiillt i • iif Congress 18 children enrolled in each program be low income, defined as having incomes at or below the official Federal poverty guideline or receiving public assistance. Up to 10 percent of the enrollees in a single program can be from families whose incomes exceed the poverty guideline. In addition, at least 10 percent of the slots in any program must be made available to serve handicapped children. Though Head Start is authorized to serve children at any age prior to the age of compulsory school attendance, most children enter the program at age 4 for one Head Start year of service. Regulations allow children to enter the program at age 3. One type of Head Start program knovra as Parent and Child Centers, serves children age 0 to 3 and their families. Once enrolled, children are permitted to remain in the program until kindergarten or first grade. Participation. In FY 1992, Head Start served 621,078 children, 63 percent of whom were age 4. FY 1992 enrollment represents roughly 30 percent of the poor children age 3 through 5, excluding B-year olds in public kindergarten. This is a rough estimate because of various data Umitations including the fact that the most recent poverty data are for calendar year 1991; the number of poor children in 1992 may be higher given evidence of expansion in welfare rolls. In addition, since it is not known to what extent those not enrolled in Head Start would enroll if additional funds were available, the estimates assume all poor children (with the exception of kindergartners) would participate. Given that other preschool and child care programs are available, it is generally agreed that some prop>ortion of eligible children would not enroll in Head Start. It is estimated that 721,300 children will be enrolled in Head Start in FY 1993. If child poverty rates continue to grow as anticipated by growing welfare rolls, the estimated increase in enrollment may not significantly reduce the proportion of unserved children. Estlmatea of Head Start Popolatlon and Percent Served, FY 1992 Age Population* March 1992 Economically eligible for HeadStart^ 1991 Fliflbleft, not In pobUc kindergarten FnroUed In Head Start* 1992 Eatlmated percent ■erved'^ Under age 3 11,825,000 3,439,000 3,439,000 18,632 1 Age3-6 11,381.000 2,999,000 2,116.900 602,445 29 AgeS 3,859,000 1,066,000 1,066,000 167,691 16 Age4 3,785,000 979,000 979,000 391,279 40 Age5 3,738,000 964.000 286,900 43,475 16 •Eetimated population, based on Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimates from the March 1992 Current Population Survey (CPS) ''Estimates prepared by CRS from the March, 1992 CPS. Based on the percentage of children living in families with annual income below the Federal Poverty Income Guidelines or living in families receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children, in 1991. •U.S. Dept. rf Health and Human Services Adminiatration for Children, Youth and Families Accordmg to DHHS, 95 percent of Head Start enrollees are eligible on the basis of their low income status. ''Number of children partiapating in Head Start as a percentage of the economically eligible population not in public kindergarten Participation rates assume that 30 percent of eligible 5-year olds are not enrolled m public kindergarten and are, therefore, candidates for Head Start. Source Table prepared by CRS. Thomas Gabe of the Education and Pubhc Welfare Division provided aasistance in rnalnng these estimates Estimates are baaed upon data and assumptions uaed 19 Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. Before I move to Major Owens, I'll begin the questioning with Major Owens, I would like to introduce Alan Lopatin at the end on my left, who is representing our Chairman, Mr. Ford here. I inad- vertently forgot to introduce you, Mr. Lopatin. Okay, Mr. Owens. Mr. Owens. Mr. Kennedy, you heard me say before that our system in New York, our Head Start Program, probably is compa- rable to yours in size and scope. I am not clear what size and scope yours has. You said that there are about 113,000 children eligible? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Owens. Is this in Los Angeles County? Mr. Kennedy. Yes, it is. Mr. Owens. And you are serving how many of those, what per- centage? Mr. Kennedy. Our office is serving 12 percent. Mr. Owens. That translates into how many thousands of kids? Mr. Kennedy. About 17,000 kids. Mr. Owens. Seventeen thousand kids? Mr. Kennedy. Thirteen thousand Head Start and with the State preschool it works out to be about 17,000. Mr. Owens. Yes. Now what kind of problems are you having with licensing? Have you had the awful experience that we have had in New York where money has been transferred from New York because we did not have a capacity to spend it and because we didn't have the physical facilities? We have the children and we have a need, we have everything else, but we just didn't have the physical facilities that could meet the licensing requirements so money got transferred to some other area in New York State. Has it been that bad here? Have you lost money? Mr. Kennedy. It wasn't to that extreme of losing Head Start dol- lars for facilities but the other part is there have been holdups in terms of how we can license facilities more immediately at the State level. At one point there was a restructuring in California. The licens- ing department was placed in a different office at the State level and now it's been regionalized in another office under DSS and so that has slowed down the way we can get our facilities licensed. Mr. Owens. So the change did not improve things. It slowed it down? Mr. Kennedy. It slowed it down. Mr. Owens. So you don't have a problem with — ultimately — you have the facilities if you can just get them to look at them and li- cense them? Is that it? Mr. Kennedy. Well, in our hardest hit areas in the South Cen- tral LA area, I would say the facilities are still more difficult to get there. Mr. Owens. That's where you have the greatest need and the most eligible children and you don't have the facilities in that area? Mr. Kennedy. That's right, so we are putting in portable build- ings and all of that in that case 20 Mr. Owens. What kind of time period does it take to get the li- censing accompHshed? Mr. Kennedy. Gee, there's anywhere from — if we get all of the paperwork in in a timely manner that still takes anywhere from 3 months to 6 months to get your licensing done. Mr. Owens. Three months to 6 months just to get them to look at something and certify that it is okay? It's not a matter of they come out and they look and you have to do something to improve it, you have to get some money to renovate it and then they have to come back? Mr. Kennedy. That's right. Mr. Owens. That's not the problem? The problem is just to get them to go through the procedure of examining, reviewing, and certifying — it takes 3 to 6 months? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Owens. Yes. Now are their standards, when they finally do that, are their standards reasonable? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Owens. Or do you find them Mr. Kennedy. Their standards are reasonable although we have a couple of regulations we fall under which is like a Title 5 and Title 22 and they are offsetting. One will be less restrictive than the other. The Title 5 is the more restrictive one, which allows, you know, 17 kids to a classroom with an aide and a parent volunteer, while Title 22 is more liberal and now it's a little bit larger popula- tion, which allows an aide and parent to be involved. That, if I would say, I would say you are going to try to expand, you need a little bit more liberal type of regulation to allow more kids in the class with parent involvement and with aides available. That will allow things to happen a little bit quicker than to code to a more restrictive guideline, so that is another Mr. Owens. So the present, if we could ever get the Senate to stop filibustering, we'd be able to have a tremendous amount of money for a summer Head Start program. Mr. Kennedy. Right. We just got the regulations today. Mr. Owens. And they talk about Head Start doesn't create jobs and yet the Head Start summer program will create more jobs than most of the other programs. They are talking about 50,000 jobs being created and they are talking about teachers and assist- ants and custodians and people preparing food and there are a number of jobs created, but my problem is will you have a problem expanding this summer? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Owens. Due to licensing? Mr. Kennedy. Well, not due to licensing. That might be part of the problem. That is an ongoing problem for expansion in 1993. Mr. Owens. Well, you have got to spend this money this summer. This is an appropriation that cuts off September 30, it's all over. Mr. Kennedy. That's right. Mr. Owens. So we are talking about a period from the time the Senate stops filibustering to the time the President signs the bill we have to move to spend the money. Mr. Kennedy. That's right. 21 Mr. Owens. Will you be able to get the facilities, open programs, and really operate? Mr. Kennedy. The only way we are going to be able to do that, and we just received the guidance as of like 2 days ago for summer and the grant is due on May 3, we've asked our agencies to look at what sites can they keep open, because all along we did not know if we were going to be able to hold onto teachers at some of the sites. We have asked the agencies, try to ask your teachers to hold on there. The only way we are going to do summer Head Start is basically with the current population that we have currently enrolled and only for those current programs and basically the community-based organizations more so than the school districts who also serve a large portion of our Head Start program — they're going to find it very difficult because they usually run a 10 month program in the K-12 program and their preschool, so they will not be able to par- ticipate this time for the most part. It will be community-based or- ganizations and only with the current population that they have there. That is the only way we are going to be able to do summer this year because we haven't had planning time. We haven't had a chance to coordinate what the needs of the delegate agencies are- Mr. Owens. You didn't believe the President when he got elect- ed, you didn't believe he could deliver? He started promising as soon as he got elected, even before he got inaugurated, but nobody believed that, is that it? Mr. Kennedy. Well, I think the belief was there but there is a difference between the belief and the actual opportunity to set aside, tell people who normally go out during the summer and work in other types of projects so that they can work through the summer themselves and tell them to wait, there is something coming. Mr. Owens. All right, so you foresee problems in getting the summer program going, but licensing will not be one of those prob- lems? Mr. Kennedy. Licensing should not be the problem for the summer because we are going to go with the current programs. Mr. Owens. To what degree would the ability to spend money to renovate facilities — greater ability to spend money to renovate fa- cilities and to purchase facilities, which is allowed now, you know, in the amended Head Start Act, will that help the licensing prob- lem on a year-round basis? Mr. Kennedy. It sure will — if the regional offices get the mes- sage from the Federal office. HHS says to them, allow those who are involved in expansion to have their startup time based on what their regional needs are. For example, I am saying to get licensing, to get facilities in place before we bring populations on, we should have the 6 months to a year to bring in, in a phase-in quality time, the facility and the licensing done up-front. The way we are doing it now, you are trying to build a facility or get a location at the same time. Three months later you are expect- ed to have kids already enrolled in your program and you are 22 ready to teach, all at the same time. That is not going to provide a quality program. Mr. Owens. You said that Congress did a good job in changing the law but the regulations are inflexible or is the regional office not following regulations? Mr. Kennedy. Well, the regional office probably is interpreting the regulations in the way that they think they need Mr. Owens. Too restrictive Chairman Martinez. Would the gentleman yield on that? Mr. Owens. Yes. Chairman Martinez. Let me put to you the question a little dif- ferently, because in our discussions last night it became apparent something that's not any big surprise to me because generally your offices tend to operate that way in a very cautious, conservative manner. But it is more obvious here in a program that really needs to be flexible, as you said, to be able to do things in a patterned way in order to ensure the quality of the program that the regional offices are really acting very conservatively and in some cases where you talked a little while ago about innovative programs, re- luctant because of past administrations and patterns set there to really allow those innovative programs. Sometimes they disallow them by being over-cautious, programs that are really reaching the goals that we want reached but in a case that Mr. Owens is refer- ring to, and what you referred to as getting the HHS to send to the regional offices directives to loosen up Mr. Kennedy. Yes, to allow some level of local — I would say if you would have control and determination of how they think they can provide the services based on some type of timeline that is like I think our regional office, Region 9, they work well with us, just that their need because we have maybe in California like in New York a large population to be served that is not being served, that are underserved, and the need to serve the greater amount of youth, maybe there is a need to sometimes to slow down the proc- ess to allow facilities to be put in place — first, some startup time to be given to train your people. As I noted, with civil unrest, high gang violence, high substance abuse, homeless people coming in, and that hasn't been always the model of Head Start to work with such a massive number of people like that. The business of serving our communities that are at risk is a lot different than it was 10 years ago, as we know. We are working with a higher at-risk population. How do we prepare our people, which we are doing through training. How do you prepare your people without taking time to orientate and train your people, at the same build your facilities in such a way that the community will respect and will come and get involved in your programs? We have a lot of quality people who are trying to do that but they are doing it all at the same time like great jugglers — build a facility, train your people, bring in new population at the same time. I am saying at the regional offices if you want a higher quality level and you want it at the community base so it will be a long- term, long-time impact on the community, give the communities an 23 opportunity or the local people an opportunity to give a timeline period by which they phase in Head Start into programs. I mean we greatly appreciate and support what Clinton is doing to get more opportunity for the youth and their families, but at the same time, once you do that, then allow the people who are actual- ly going to do the implementation a chance to present a way that it can be done effectively and qualitatively that will allow a long- term impact. Mr. Owens. If I may extend my time, Mr. Chairman? Chairman Martinez. Just one exchange between us. One of the things that is becoming apparent in what we did with the amendments to Head Start is the delay in implementing regu- lations does not have the local offices ready to go with the imple- mentation of those things, especially where it comes to purchasing facilities. I think what we need to do as a subcommittee is write a letter to Secretary Shalala and encourage her to write directives in lieu of regulations being developed because it takes time to develop those regulations and because they are really waiting to see, they actual- ly have already had the request for purchase of facilities and they have not developed any criteria for that, almost waiting to see with those two applications and how they are prepared and how they are presented to them as that to set the criteria for the acquiring of and purchase of facilities. So that is causing some delay in that, and if we are going to get that implemented as quickly as possible I think we are going to have to have the Secretary send some directives on how the region- al offices should operate. Mr. Owens. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I think Mr. Kennedy is making a little different point here which we hadn't quite provided for and that is you are saying that the awarding of the funds for an in- crease in expansion of Head Start should not be dependent upon a quick enrollment. The enrollment — right now you have to identify the kids you are going to be serving Mr. Kennedy. That's right. Mr. Owens, [continuing] while you are purchasing or renovating the building and you want to be able to use demographic informa- tion to say that this area has the children but we have to do it, we have to start the building process maybe a year before we enroll the actual youngsters. You want greater lead time and not be tied down to we have got to identify and enroll the youngsters before you can get the money flowing for the purchase or renovation of the facilities. It may take a year or a year and a half. Mr. Kennedy. Right, which we always do — you know, all Head Start programs do their demographic studies each year. That's part of your community base. Mr. Owens. You don't get any money unless you can show you have the actual children available within a certain number of months and you want a longer period of time between that necessi- ty to have the enrollment in place and the time you start the proc- ess of getting the building ready. Mr. Kennedy. Exactly. Mr. Owens. Just one more question and then I'll yield, Mr. Chairman. First of all you said you have 14 school districts and 14 24 community-based organizations. What percentage of the programs are run by community-based organizations — of these 13,000 young- sters, how many are serviced by community-based organizations? Mr. Kennedy. Probably 60 percent. Mr. Owens. Sixty percent? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Owens. Serviced by community-based organizations? Mr. Kennedy. Right. Mr. Owens. How do you handle the in-kind contribution prob- lem? Mr. Kennedy. With the community-based organizations? Mr. Owens. Yes. Mr. Kennedy. Or just overall? Mr. Owens. Overall and — either way you want to put it. Mr. Kennedy. Well, the in-kind part is just basically dealt with through volunteer services. That seems to be the highest involve- ment that I see that they are providing. Also, we can see founda- tions who come in who are under multi-umbrella agencies. Mr. Owens. The county and the city are not putting up any money for that? Mr. Kennedy. Well, the county provides its services also as a part of that whole in-kind, but county education. County Office of Education, but if you are talking about like County Office of Super- visors, Board of Supervisors and things like that each of the dele- gate agencies that I work with, they have their own linkages into different county and city governmental organizations and often- times they do get support from each one of them. Mr. Owens. Mr. Kennedy, will you be around for the whole hear- ing? Mr. Kennedy. Yes, I will. Mr. Owens. Well, maybe I'll want to come back later on with a couple other questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Chairman Martinez. Thank you. Major Owens. Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott. Thank you. First, Mr. Kennedy, is Head Start your sole jurisdiction? Mr. Kennedy. Yes, Head Start State Preschool. Mr. Scott. Say it again? Mr. Kennedy. Head Start State Preschools. Mr. Scott. On the State Preschool, that is not technically Head Start? Mr. Kennedy. No, it isn't. I just mentioned them both together because we have some co-located programs. Mr. Scott. Okay. When you find — how do you find facilities for the State-run preschool? Mr. Kennedy. For the State-run preschools, I think the facilities are just like the Head Start facilities. In our communities you will have State-run pre-schools that are in churches. You will have State preschools that are on campuses of school districts. You will have also State-run preschools that are very much connected to school district types of programs, maybe outside a bungalow or a portable building. Mr. Scott. Do you have to go through the same licensing process for State-run preschools? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. 25 Mr. Scott. There is no difference in the Ucensing process? Mr. Kennedy. The Hcensing process is the same. Mr. Scott. You had mentioned that there is a transition problem from Head Start into the regular Kindergarten? Mr. Kennedy. Right. Mr. Scott. Because the Head Start students are somehow identi- fied Mr. Kennedy. And tracked. Mr. Scott, [continuing] and tracked. One would think that the Head Start educational process would be designed to eliminate the differential and therefore they ought to be prepared to go into the regular Kindergarten class without being tracked. Mr. Kennedy. That's very true. That is the ideal. As we all know, most poverty-based programs oftentimes leave a stigma of being a special needs child or kid from a special type of program and this is feedback to me from various community people and feedback from various agency people that oftentimes as the old label goes in poverty-based programs that are designed to pull people up beyond their bootstraps to levels of self-sufficiency and to compete in the American Dream, oftentimes because people in other structures have not been exposed to the philosophy and the vision of what the intent of Head Start is for, they get caught up in only viewing it from one perspective. Just like we all know, when you think of Head Start, many times people only think of children. The only way to make an impact on Head Start you have to think of families. It's a family program. It's a family-based program that allows the kids to grow, which allows the parents to grow also. Mr. Scott. Well, before kids get tracked, you're suggesting they are getting tracked on prejudice rather than on test scores? Mr. Kennedy. I am saying that those are possibilities based on people's feedback to me. Mr. Scott. You have tracking in Los Angeles that is tracked other than by some objective standard? Mr. Kennedy. No. It should always be an objective standard. It's just how often parents feel that once a kid from a Head Start gets into a K-12 program and they do very well in the program that many times the feedback has been their teachers, who are in the K-12 structure, interact with the — once they find out he's a Head Start type of kid there is a view, maybe because of the fact that parents do not have the same level of influence in the K-12 struc- ture that they do in the Head Start Program Mr. Scott. Are you talking about a formal tracking system or an expectation? Mr. Kennedy. An expectation. Mr. Scott. Because there have been studies that have shown that if you tell a teacher something about a student's prior grades for example and in fact randomly distribute the grades that the students will often end up with the year according to the grade that the teacher thought they had gotten before, that the better students, who presumably had done better before, did better than students that the teacher had been told were slower students in fact were slower and the correlation was much closer with what the teacher was told than what the student actually done. 26 Is that what you are suggesting about Head Start? Mr. Kennedy. That's like the Crowe & Crowe study you're refer- ring to, that that is a part of the picture indicating that if a kid comes in — now let me be clear about this, that I am not saying all Head Start families. This is not a universal-felt feeling. This is only a feeling of a certain portion of the people who have felt just com- fortable enough sharing it with me because it is being shared and is being shared organizationally from the point of insensitivity to the youth and their families when they come into the system, and it really maybe should not be considered insensitivity because you have two types of systems, one where parents have a lot of influ- ence over policies and decisions that are being made in Head Start, and then when you get into another structure that you are in an advisory capacity of "thank you for the information" but you really do not have a policy decision. Oftentimes it aborts their involvement in thinking that their kids are going to be treated fairly. They are going to think, well, now I'm back to second-class citizenry again and that might be the illusion moreso than what is the reality because I haven't seen any study or haven't even developed one myself to even determine if that is in fact — I know that one of our goals within the next couple of years with me here will be to take a look at how our own school districts will have Head Start programs, how they interact, wheth- er you say we have a good X, Y study here and we really want to do it. Mr. Scott. Okay. That kind of gets to the next question, in terms of follow-through. Some of the studies have shown that a lot of the benefit of Head Start evaporates by the second grade — at least some of the studies have shown that. Mr. Kennedy. I thought it was by the third grade. Mr. Scott. Third grade? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Scott. What can we do to make sure that the benefits of Head Start don't evaporate in terms of follow-through? Part of that may be in-service sensitivity to the teachers so they do not have the lower expectations. Mr. Kennedy. I think since Head Start is a holistic program that provides health, nutrition, all kinds of services that the traditional educational structure is educationally based and Head Start may not have been viewed as a educational program also to the extent that it is, and it should just be brought in closer to the loop of formal education in the sense that the public system of education should have as one of its goals to bring in closer the Head Start Program so I think people can be informed more about what is being offered. Mr. Scott. Do you have any programs in K through 12 following through with what I guess the benefit of the Head Start to make sure that that Head Start is not diminished? Mr. Kennedy. I think that would be something very iniportant and, you know, it's funny. We're moving toward collaborative deci- sionmaking, shared decisionmaking, site-based management — all of these concepts that are going on in the formal education K-12 structure and what do we have in Head Start? We have all of that. 27 You have shared decisionmaking with policy councils and direc- tors. You have site-based management at your local delegate agen- cies with boards of directors working in collaborations with policy chairpersons working with the executive directors of the agencies. You have volunteers almost at every level and you also have volun- teers who eventually sometimes become teachers, directors and program advocates within the Head Start model, and now within the last 5 or 10 years we are just starting to embrace the whole idea of what Head Start has been doing for a long period of time. Mr. Scott. Let me ask I guess another area. Your program has required performance standards? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Scott. Can you make a comment on how you view the per- formance standards in terms of how they actually measure the suc- cess of a program? Many of the performance standards are kind of process-based and not result-oriented and whether or not the meas- urements that we are requiring actually measure what we ought to be measuring. Mr. Kennedy. Well, in terms of program operations, I think what we are using the onsite program evaluation tool which covers the administration, the fiscal, and your programmatic aspects, you are covering the whole program, all the various components. It is effective types of tools that you do have in terms of looking at program congruency, program operational ability that is lying within the performance standards. The tools that we have right now are measuring performance standard tools. Mr. Scott. Let me ask you in a slightly different way, you have 14 districts. Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Scott. So you have a lot of different programs, some presum- ably better than others? Mr. Kennedy. Each district has its K-12 structure or they might be a K-6 and they have Head Start as just one of their many pro- grams. Mr. Scott. But as a Head Start Director, you oversee all of these programs? Mr. Kennedy. As a grantee. Those districts are considered dele- gate agencies. Mr. Scott. Do you evaluate the programs to determine which program — have the capability of determining that some programs are in fact better than others? Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Scott. Okay, what do you measure and how can you tell that a program is better than another one? Mr. Kennedy. We take the performance standards that are in the regulations and use a tool that we are using regionally and I guess they might be using nationally, which is the On-Site Pro- gram Review Instrument and that is called the OSPRI. It is de- signed around the performance standards. Also, since we have coordinated Mr. Scott. Can performance standards measure whether or not the children got an education? Mr. Kennedy. Well, it's the intent of the regulations that, in my understanding and the way that we use it is that the regulations 28 are designed to provide quality services to kids and their families. If you live within the standards and follow the performance stand- ards, you are going to perform a certain level of quality that is going to ensure that kids will advance in terms of learning their developmental skills. It's going to ensure that families become practitioners of effective decisionmaking, and it's going to ensure that kids do have an op- portunity and their families to do appropriate transition into the other system. Mr. Scott. Okay, well, what do you have in the better programs that you don't have in the programs that aren't as good? What kind of things — what do they focus on? Mr. Kennedy. What are differences? I think the real difference is often — there's two or three areas. One is when they do their needs assessment and part of doing your program development you develop your needs assessment and you identify what are the major goal areas in addition to your perform- ance standards that you need to improve upon in order to make a difference with your families. In some communities the goal area is to work with the gangs that are in your community to try to bring in the youth and the parents who have young children and start to get them more in- volved in Head Start, the proactive side of education and service, so the better programs are showing congruency between what they do in their community-based needs assessment, their family needs as- sessment, and they match that with the performance standards, and they do the performance standards to make sure their pro- gram has a foundation, to make sure they have a base of services. To make a program exemplary, to make it go beyond the quality that the performance standards are, the programs that use their needs assessment and set up goals and they achieve their goals. If their goal is to work more closely with at-risk families who are homeless and because they have a large population in their com- munity they apply other strategies to make that possible. Some- times they will use some of their Head Start dollars to try to bring in a higher level of mental health services. I would think in the last uprising we had in South Central LA in the Pico-Union area that I look at the agencies to see how are they doing with the mental health services because of the large impact that they had on the riots. I look and see what are their social service components doing to provide services to the families who are having difficulty adjusting to the stress syndrome or working in a very volatile community and so on. Those the type of things — it's almost individualized to say that they meeting the needs of their objectives that they set up beyond the performance standards, and the performance standards do say do your community-based needs assessment; after you do your needs assessment, set up your goals and objectives and as your pri- ority goals along with keeping a quality-based performance stand- ard. Mr. Scott. So if someone does well on the performance stand- ards, there is a correlation between that and the educational bene- fit to the children? If someone is doing good on the performance standards, then you would expect a good outcome for the children? 29 Mr. Kennedy. That's right, I would. Mr. Scott. Since you do both the State and the Head Start, what qualifications for the staff — do you have the same qualification levels for staff for Head Start that you do in the State-run pre- school? Mr. Kennedy. We have with LA County those who are subcon- tracted with us. An identified study that was done in getting all of the same level teaching positions, social service positions, and so on, they have all been given the same model of positions that are agreed upon, standardized types of positions, and standardized sala- ries Mr. Scott. So a Head Start teacher isn't making less than a pre- school State-run preschool program? Mr. Kennedy. No, each school district does have its own salary range and because they subcontract whether they can establish the same range of salaries that they have at the school district. Mr. Scott. Do Head Start teachers make less than those similar- ly situated Mr. Kennedy. Typically Head Start and community-based orga- nizations will make less than one on a school district because school districts are paid out probably higher on the average than you will find in the Head Start Program and the community-based organizations. Mr. Scott. Is there a significant differential? Mr. Kennedy. I think overall there is. Mr. Scott. And does that — does quality suffer as a result? Mr. Kennedy. That's a good question and I don't think I Mr. Scott. Let me ask one other question. We are looking at funding summer programs. Can you just say a word about the value of having a summer program in terms of eliminating a loss in benefit that the student may suffer by not having the Head Start experience, stopping the Head Start experi- ence in June and then getting into school in September as opposed to following all the way through? Mr. Kennedy. Yes, it's automatically — that is the benefit, the fact that they have continuing educational training as well as other types of services up to the point that they are ready to enter the K-12 structure, so those kids with 4.9 who are about ready to enter the K-12 system, it's of great benefit for them and I would hope that the districts and the community-based organizations that we have as delegate agencies to us will probably choose that popu- lation as their first priority if they are overpopulated for the summer and that's because that makes an excellent transition in terms of skills. Mr. Scott. Do you have a present waiting list in your programs? Mr. Kennedy. We have continuous enrollment throughout all of the various delegate agencies so there are waiting lists. You estab- lish a list in order to even set up your next site. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Scott. One quick question on what Mr. Scott was asking on salary. What is the average salary of a Head Start teacher? Mr. Kennedy. That is a good question. I don't have that figure. Chairman Martinez. Ms. Navarro? fiQ_Q1 7 n _ Q^ _ ^ 30 Is Ms. Navarro here? Ms. Navarro. Yes. Chairman Martinez. Do you know what that is? Ms. Navarro. It's about $1,400. Chairman Martinez. One thousand four hundred dollars? And for your information, $1,400 what, a month? Ms. Navarro. A month. Mr. Kennedy. A month. Chairman Martinez. A month — that's about $16,000 a year, $16,800. Mr. Kennedy. That's right. Chairman Martinez. And the starting salary in most school dis- tricts for regular teachers, I don't know what it is in LA but I think it is pretty close to that — $21,500, so there is quite a dispari- ty. Mr. Kennedy. Also, you are talking about credentialing differ- ences of course you are aware of. Chairman Martinez. We are, yes. Mr. Kennedy. In the school district you are talking about the completion of your BA in a Childcare Development credential and usually a regular teaching credential. In your preschool program you do not have to have it; you have 2 years of community college and you have, you get your credential that way, which is really a certificate, a license. Mr. Scott. Can you say that again? Mr. Kennedy. You get a license to teach in the preschool, which is a community college based education which is 2 years, and often in the K-12 systems what they have as a part of their teachers, they come in with a BA and a license. Mr. Scott. So what do you need for Head Start? Mr. Kennedy. AA. Mr. Scott. AA is what you need for Head Start. Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Scott. And in the State-run program? Mr. Kennedy. They're usually higher. Teachers who can transi- tion with a BA degree and above. Mr. Scott. Okay, so in addition, Mr. Chairman, to the salary dif- ferential you have significant qualification differentials. Mr. Kennedy. Yes, but you know, the school districts can hire just like the licensed persons also. It's just that if there's a job op- portunity you are looking at career ladders. You often will find the school district selecting one with that BA degree because they can move from preschool to later on to Kindergarten to secondary, whatever their goals are, and also in the community-based they can have the same goals if they choose. It's just that they typically do not have that type of educational career ladder because you don't have secondary kids or elementary kids you work with. Chairman Martinez. Do you have another question? Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that one of the qualifi- cations you need in the Head Start Program would be a commit- ment and a caring, which is not sometimes measured by educa- tion Mr. Kennedy. That's right. 31 Mr. Scott, [continuing] and I am not sure where that would come in the measurements, where it would come in in salary, but it seems to me that there's some measurements that we are just not making and I am not sure really where I come down on it. If you require the higher benefits, you may not get people from the community who really have that caring for the students that I think is so important in the programs, so if you just use paper qualifications I don't think that's enough and I just say that. If somebody wants to comment about it later, fine, but it's just one of the things that you just can't measure or we aren't measuring yet. Chairman Martinez. Well, I'm probably in the same boat that you are, not really sure where I come down on it, but something I'd really like to take a look at because I agree with you that paper measurement isn't always the best measurement of what you are going to get for what you are paying. At any rate, Mr. Kennedy, you have said that you will be around. I would like to talk to you personally about another situa- tion dealing with Head Start and that is the acquisition or buying of facilities in which we have heard previously that even though that is in law now and there are people that have made applica- tions for the purchase and acquiring of properties for Head Start, there seems to be delay that could be eliminated simply by a direc- tive from the Secretary of HHS. I don't want to take the time now. I'd just like to get on to the next panel, but at some point in time I would like to talk to you about what your experience is that regard. Mr. Kennedy. Okay, and thank you for the opportunity to share with you our perspective. Chairman Martinez. Thank you. We should really be very grate- ful to you for the information you have given us today. It's invalu- able and it's something that we can put to use. Thank you again, Mr. Kennedy. With that, I would like to call our next panel. First, I would like to call up Ms. Judy Brummel, who is the Pro- gram Manager of the Kern County Head Start Program from Ba- kersfield, California; and joining her is Ms. Norma Hollis, Execu- tive Director and with Ms. Norma Hollis is a participant from the Frederick Douglass Child Development Center of Los Angeles, Cali- fornia; and Mr. Clifford Marcussen — did I say that right? Mr. Marcussen. Mar-ka-son. Chairman Martinez. Marcussen — Clifford Marcussen, Executive Director and participant from OPTIONS Head Start in South El Monte, California; and Ms. Lynn Harris, Program Director and with her is a participant from the Charles Drew Head Start of Compton, California; and last but not least, Ms. Jo Navarro, who is a Field Representative for the Early Childhood Development, American Federation of Teachers, who is from Burbank, California. I think we have been able to make accommodations at the table for everyone. Thank you, Cliff, for taking charge of that situation. Mr. Marcussen. As a former teacher who carried out the trash and did everything in Head Start, those types of things come natu- rally. 32 Chairman Martinez. Very good. Will the people who are the Ex- ecutive Directors introduce the participants that are with them? Let's start with Ms. Judy Brummel. STATEMENTS OF JUDY BRUMMEL, PROGRAM MANAGER, KERN COUNTY HEAD START PROGRAM, BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA; NORMA HOLLIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACCOMPANIED BY ALMA ROMO, PARTICIPANT, FREDERICK DOUGLASS CHILD DE- VELOPMENT CENTER, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA; CLIFFORD MARCUSSEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACCOMPANIED BY PAU- LINE ABU-TAYEH, PARTICIPANT, OPTIONS HEAD START, SOUTH EL MONTE, CALIFORNIA; LYNN HARRIS, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, ACCOMPANIED BY PARTICIPANT, CHARLES DREW HEAD START, COMPTON, CALIFORNIA; AND JO NAVARRO, FIELD REP- RESENTATIVE, EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, BURBANK, CALIFORNIA Ms. Brummel. Good morning. Chairman Martinez and Mr. Owens, Mr. Scott, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the Kern County Economic Oppor- tunity Corporation's Head Start Program and the children and the families of Kern County. Just to tell you a little bit about myself, in 1965 I had the oppor- tunity to be a summer youth employee in the Los Angeles area and worked with the Head Start Program and the State preschool pro- grams, and that's when I made a decision to enter the field of Early Childhood Education. I have been working with children, youth, and families for over 17 years and with Head Start for the past 13 years. The majority of that time I spent in San Luis Obispo County as a Teacher-Director, and then the Education Coordinator. The last 2 years I have been with Kern County as the Program Manager and I served in the ca- pacity as the Director of that Program. Currently there are approximately 7,151 eligible children in Kern County. In Head Start, our program is currently serving about 17 percent of the need. There are other programs and provid- ers in our county that are serving approximately 32 percent, so with the total of eligible children we have about 49 percent of the children being served in our county. I wanted to talk a little bit about the changes that have occurred in our program over the last several years with the onset of expan- sion. When I came to Kern County in the summer of 1991 we were serving 450 children and our current funding level is at 1,229 chil- dren. We had about a 173 percent increase in the eligible children that we're serving. We really took to heart looking at the county and the needs of the children and families and looked at the unserved areas and the underserved areas of the county, and so we have moved from serv- ing the metropolitan Bakersfield area to reaching out to the small- er, more rural communities in our county through all the expan- sion efforts. We especially looked at areas that had no or limited pre-K-8 pro- grams and so we have been able to look at center-based and also 33 we have expanded the home-based option in those areas. We really have focused on maintaining high quality and part of that is that we really went back to basics. We really thought that in the midst of all the expansion we needed to come back and look at the pro- gram and how we were putting it together and we wanted to make sure there was quality and we really focused on the elements that we felt provided quality services to children and families. We focused on the center-based program and looking at case management and what was manageable, keeping our class sizes be- tween 17 and 20, having two paid staff and also our parent volun- teers and community volunteers, so that we tried to provide a 1:5 ratio in the classroom. We also looked at our family services component and we devel- oped a case management of one family service worker for every 40 children or families in our center-based model. We have also made the commitment to have a 1:10 caseload in our home-based pro- gram, so we have one home-based educator for every 10 children or families. I think that's really important because the direct services is where the impact of the program is at. In addition, we have really looked at this tremendous expansion that we have gone through in the last few years that in order to support our center-based staff, our families, that we needed to look at the organizational impact it had on our components and so we through the allocation of the quality improvement moneys, train- ing and technical assistance moneys, we have looked at broadening the base of our component staff. We are going to be moving into what we would consider a region- al family management model where we would have a group of staff that would focus on each of the components and they would have a caseload of between 350 to 400 children or families. We feel that this is an effective way to not only monitor the program but make sure that direct services and support services are being provided to our staff and to our families. One of the things that has been difficult for us in this expansion has been the recruitment of qualified, trained staff, and as many of you may know, the early childhood profession has not been in the high ranking areas of pay, and so for many years persons who were interested in the field were often discouraged from entering the field of early childhood education because of the low pay. Now with the quality improvement moneys, the continuation of COLAs, we are able to not only retain staff but begin to attract people into the field of early childhood education. I think that is important to keep in mind. The other thing is 2 years ago when we saw the expansion coming we realized that we did not have a pool of people to draw from and we, in collaboration with one of our local colleges, devel- oped a Child Development Intensive Program and we offered par- ents the opportunity to enter a college program where they could acquire up to 12 units of early childhood education. We had 47 parents participate in that program. Eighty percent of those parents were then employed by KCEOC Head Start for that following year. They became Teacher Assistants, Family Service Workers, and Food Service Assistants. It has been very positive for / us and we are going to implement that program again this 34 summer, utilizing the T&TA funds that we received in this last ex- pansion. Mr. Scott. Excuse me, Ms. Brummel. Those are the parents? Ms. Brummel. Yes. Mr. Scott. Okay, I'm sorry. Ms. Brummel. We really have found that that is a quality base to pull from. They become interested. They have an understanding of Head Start. They believe in the program and so it is an opportu- nity for them to acquire educational skills. Many of them have con- tinued their education. Our agency has a high percentage of current staff who were pre- vious Head Start parents. I would say that we probably have 70 percent of our current staff were previous Head Start families. Mr. Owens. You've got funding for that from where? Ms. Brummel. From our Training and Technical Assistance, which is another part of our basic grant, so when expansion comes along and our basic grant goes up, we also get an allocation for training and technical assistance. We have chosen to utilize that money to work in a collaborative effort with the college. What we do is that we use Head Start Training and Technical Assistance funds to offset the cost of the instructor, pay for the units and also provide the textbooks that are required for the class and the classes are held at our agency and we have a training room. Then we also provide parents with a stipend to help assist with childcare and travel expenses. One of the things that we have also engaged in through the ex- pansion is looking at collaborative efforts with other programs. Re- cently Kern County has established a Children's Network and our agency and our program have been actively involved in that. I have been sitting on a countywide collaborative for Healthy Start over the last year as the school districts apply for grants for Healthy Start funds and what's really exciting about it is that our Head Start programs are often located on the same campuses that will be offering Healthy Start and we see this as a joint collabora- tive effort but also to see that we are not duplicating services. If we have a Head Start child, there may be a sibling in that school or vice versa, and we can begin to work with the whole family. I think, as Andrew talked about earlier, that Healthy Start in California is going to be a continuation of what is begun in Head Start for many families, that it is a family service model that we have been doing for many years, and so again it is an opportunity for us to work together to bridge that transition so that families have continued support and services available to them. One of the areas of need that we are seeing is again the full funding is essential but beyond that is to look at the full day, full year program. Many of our families are really struggling to move on to self-sufficiency and the half-day program that we currently offer does not always meet every family's needs and often we are not attracting those families or not able to meet those families' needs because they have to be involved with so many providers. I had experienced when I was a center-based teacher that I had a family that a child went to five different providers during the day. They went to a family daycare person in the morning. They came to Head Start for 3V2, 4 hours. They went to an interim childcare 35 provider in mid-afternoon. They went to a State preschool program in the afternoon, and they went to another family daycare provider at the end of the day. That's not good quality child care for chil- dren. There needs to be consistency and we need to be a part of that system. I have had experience working with State migrant childcare pro- grams and Head Start migrant childcare programs so I know that we can do good quality childcare and beyond just our three and half a day programs. [The prepared statement of Ms. Brummel follows:] Statement of Judy J. Brummel, Program Manager, Head Start Program, Bakersfield, California Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the Kern County Economic Opportunity Corpora- tion's Head Start Program regarding the reauthorization of Head Start. It is my un- derstanding that the committee is interested in issues surrounding the tremendous expansion the program has undertaken in the last several years; and how Kern County Economic Opportunity's Head Start Program has implemented this expan- sion of services to meet the needs of its county's low-income children and their fami- lies. Out of 7,151 eligible children in Kern County, 17 percent of these children are being served by the KCEOC Head Start program, 32 percent are being served by other providers, for a total of 49 percent eligible children being served and 51 per- cent not being served. Prior to the onset of expansion funding, Kern County Economic Opportunity Cor- poration's Head Start Program funded enrollment level was at 450 children. The program's current funding enrollment level is at 1,229 children, and the agency has recently submitted an expansion proposal to serve an additional 705 children in the unserved and underserved areas of Kern County. The program has been experienc- ing a continual grovii;h since 1990. This growth has kept the program in a state of disequilibrium, requiring the staff to be in a constant state of change and reevaluat- ing. Over the last several years, the Kern County Economic Opportunity Corporation's Head Start Program has continued to provide the comprehensive child development services to children which include education, health, nutrition, social services and parent involvement services based on the Head Start Performance Standards. In ad- dition, the program has moved from a child focus to a family focus delivery service model and thereby extending the comprehensive component services in a holistic approach to the children and their families. KCEOC Head Start has become actively involved in collaborative efforts with other agencies to share information and re- sources, thereby ensuring comprehensive services to children and their families, i.e., the Healthy Start Collaborative, Kern County Dental Access Committee, the Kern County Children's Network, and has established a supportive family literacy and re- entry to adult education program in conjunction with other community literacy and adult education programs. To ensure the quality of services delivered, given the ongoing funding of expan- sion, the KCEOC Head Start Program has learned from experience to set attainable goals for implementing the expansion of services. Since the onset of expansion, KCEOC's Head Start Program has had to continuously evaluate and reevaluate the implementation of the program to ensure the maintenance of high quality. One of the major ways KCEOC Head Start has strived to ensure quality is to ensure a manageable caseload for center based/home based staff and providing suf- ficient programmatic component support staff. The allocation of Quality Improve- ment Funds has been key to ensuring the retention of staff and providing the neces- sary support staff at the component level to assist and support the implementation, organization, documentation, and monitoring of services. KCEOC Head Start has maintained the 17 to 20 children per class size, provided the minimum SVb hours for classroom and socialization experiences, two paid teaching staff and volunteers to provide a 1:6 adult/child ratio in the classroom. The program maintains a 1:40 Family Service Worker to child/family ratio to ensure that quality health, nutri- tion, and social services are provided and followed through upon. As the comprehensiveness of the Head Start components increase with the addi- tion of special programs, i.e., family literacy, substance abuse education, multilin- 36 gual programming, etc. there will be a growing need for personnel who specialize in these areas. Also, due to the decrease in funded programs available to low income families, Head Start may be faced with picking up the slack. One area currently affecting us is the lack of mental health services available to the children and fami- lies we serve. KCEOC Head Start is proposing in its current expansion proposal to implement a regional family case management system approach by expanding its component support staff. Each regional team will have a representative from each component; and will meet on a regular basis with center based and home based staff and families to assess the needs of children and/or families and develop a plan of action to address the identified needs. The regional family case management team's caseload would be 350 to 400 children and their families. One of the major challenges that the KCEOC Head Start program has encoun- tered during the recent expansions has been the supply and demand of qualified/ trained staff at the center based and home based levels. For too many years the early childhood profession has been reflected as a low compensated vocation, there- fore many individuals were discouraged from entering the field. Qualified staff is especially difficult to recruit in many of the outlying rural communities of Kern County. In an effort to create an increased pool of qualified personnel, KCEOC Head Start has utilized the increased allocation of Training and Technical Assistant funds. KCEOC Head Start has collaborated with the local college to offer college coursework in child development to Head Start parents. In the summer of 1991, 47 Head Start parents participated in such a program. Twenty seven parents complet- ed 12 semester units and 20 completed six semester units in child development stud- ies. Eighty percent of the parents who participated in the Child Development Inten- sive program became employees of KCEOC Head Start as teacher assistants, family service workers, or food service assistants. Many of the parents continued their edu- cational endeavors with continued support through the program's Training and Technical Assistance Funds. During the summer of 1993 the program will be offer- ing a similar opportunity for parents and staff to acquire the basic child develop- ment coursework required for employment opportunities. This training opportunity not only opened the door for parents to be employed through Head Start, but also provided them with the basic Child Development courses required to teach in the private childcare sector. As we look at future expansions and how they will affect the way we deliver serv- ices it will be important to keep in mind attainable goals and objectives as we iden- tify the needs of the children and families served by the Head Start program. We will need to continuously look at the family and community needs for services, matching the program option that will be most effective given these needs. With the upcoming 1993 expansion efforts we have made the decision to implement a trans- portation system to ensure access to the program for families and communities that have no transportation and/or limited access to public transportation. One addition- al concern is the lack of community health providers, especially for the dental needs of children. Kern County currently has a limited number of available health service providers in the outlying areas. The Kern County Economic Opportunity Corporation participates in a variety of countywide groups that work together on behalf of children, etc. Most recently the agency has become a member of the newly formed Kern County Children's Net- work. The agency and program have also been actively involved in the Healthy Start County Collaborative, and will have several Head Start centers located on ele- mentary campuses that will also house Healthy Start programs. Head Start admin- istrative staff sit on a variety of advisory boards and commissions that have direct impact on services to low income children and families, i.e. Kern County Dental Access Committee. KCEOC Head Start has enjoyed a warm relationship with the numerous school districts throughout the county, with the majority of the agency's Head Start centers located on elementary campuses. The Head Start program works closely with the school districts that administer State Preschool and Child Develop- ment programs to ensure distribution of services to low income children and fami- lies occurs. KCEOC itself is a provider of services to low income children and fami- lies through its various State funded programs, i.e. Emergency Services, LIHEAP, WIC, Family Health Clinic, and commodities, etc. This continued coordination can be facilitated at the Federal level by the development of inter-agency agreements and Memorandums of Understanding between Federal and State funded programs with Head Start, i.e. Public Health and Head Start. Full funding is essential to better serve the Head Start population but there needs to be strong consideration to extending the funding level to allow Head Start to serve full day, full year. Summer Head Start will add to the continuum of services for some children and their families, but one of the greatest needs stated by all 37 socio-economic groups throughout Kern County is for affordable child care services. Low income parents are encouraged and in some instances mandated to acquire skill training, schooling, or seek employment when their children reach Head Start eligible age. But for many parents there is a lack or adequate, affordable child care during and after training of schooling. The lack of adequate affordable child care services acts as a roadblock for families to move on to self-sufficiency. Therefore, full funding for full day, full year would support the foundation from which Head Start and the other "War on Poverty" programs were founded ... to assist families in attaining self-sufficiency. Chairman Martinez. Do you have a participant with you? Ms. Brummel. Pardon? No, I do not. Chairman Martinez. You do not? All right, the next person we will hear from is Ms. Norma Mollis. Ms. HoLLis. Thank you, Mr. Martinez. Welcome, Mr. Owens who just got to California. I'd like to first tell you that our agency — I'm the director of an unusual agency in that we are both a grantee and a delegate. We are a grantee under the regional office directly and we're a delegate agency under Mr. Kennedy's program through LACOE. We serve 1,341 children and we've applied for expansion of 1,050 for the next year and half which will bring us to about 2,400 chil- dren. We're located in South Central Los Angeles, very affected by the riot area and we also serve families in the Antelope Valley which is about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. I would like to address the issue of barriers to quality since there is so much discussion now on the issue of quality within Head Start. One of the first barriers that I would like to bring to your attention is the issue of paperwork that's required in Head Start which takes up a great deal of the time of the employees in meet- ing the documentation standards that we are regulated by. For example, in our agency in order to enroll one child we have 22 pieces of paper and if you multiply that times 1,341 children you have 30,000 documents you're dealing with just for the enrollment process. When we get 2,400 children you're talking about 52,000 documents. We have been, until this year a completely manual organization. We have purchased computers this year and I would strongly rec- ommend that you support full automation in all Head Start pro- grams, particularly those as they are growing larger. We are involved in the HSFIS study, I don't know if you're aware of that, that's the Head Start Family Information System which is a pilot study that is being sponsored by the National Head Start office and that is to completely automate Head Start pro- grams. They are developing the software as well as providing the hardware for that and we are very excited about the opportunity to begin our recoupment process next month with scanners that will allow us to scan preenrollment forms and quickly identify priority lists of children without having to go through the manual process that takes normally a 2-week timeframe. The second issue of paperwork is the issue of the refunding proc- ess. Because we're a delegate and a grantee, that means that every proposal I have to prepare twice. Since the end of January I have done nothing but write proposals. I've written 11 proposals in that timeframe and that takes away from the opportunity to supervise staff and provide quality within our program. 38 So for programs that function adequately where the reviews are satisfactory, there could perhaps be some other way of the refund- ing process as opposed to the continual need to generate the same paperwork for the same items. The second barrier to quality I would like to address is the issue of organizational structure. With the expansion process and with programs developing quickly and the fact that there are so many programs across the Nation, there is no information available to programs to give you options of how you might structure your pro- grams. Most Head Starts are run by individuals who are not your MBAs, who are not management trained, therefore, they may not be knowledgeable about how to properly structure an organization to be effective. There should be some manner of sharing informa- tion among all programs so that as they begin to expand by large numbers they're not reinventing the wheel. They have information about what works, what doesn't work, how you might structure it in clusters, divisions, regionally, just how you might operate the program without going through the changes and the problems of trial and error. The third area of barriers would be the issue of monitoring. Cur- rently monitoring is offered by grantee programs, but an individual who directs a delegate program do not necessarily have monitoring systems within their own agency. According to the performance standards, the education staff, for example, are required to monitor their own classrooms. It's very difficult when the person who is providing services also monitors their services because then you don't have any kind of quality as- surance there. So I'm suggesting that a quality assurance compo- nent be added to Head Start programs at the direct services level so that programs can begin to monitor themselves before the Fed- eral Government comes in to monitor them and to provide so they can know themselves. We do, do on-site monitoring, the self assess- ment, but actually a staff person or a component that is an admin- istrative component that would allow that to occur could provide for additional quality. The next issue of quality I would like to address is the issue of multiple hats. Most Head Start programs, and I'm sure you have heard this, wear many, many hats — the staff in the program wear many hats. This is an issue that has to do somewhat with funding, it also has to do with organizational structures. So if there is some way that in the process of expansion and additional funding people don't have to wear multiple hats, then more work could be accom- plished in far better quality. I would like to address Mr. Scott's earlier question about salaries and attracting quality teachers and it does make a difference be- cause as your salaries are lower you, of course, cannot attract the most competent teachers. In our program the teaching staff only works 7 hours per day as opposed to 8 hours per day. The $1,400 average that Ms. Navarro mentioned to you, you must multiply by 87.5 percent in order to determine our staffs salaries because they're only working 7 hours a day. Then you take the issue of parity and we are not at 100 percent parity of what the salary schedule says that LACOE puts out, we 39 do not pay because we have no funds for that. So when you break that down to another 92 percent which is what our staff are paid at for this program year, you're talking an $1,100 salary as opposed to the $1,400 average that she's talking about. And as you are expand- ing we're going to need an additional 68 teachers for the expansion coming up. It's going to be very hard in South Central Los Angeles to attract teachers with the right qualifications at that type of salary. With that I would like to introduce one of our staff persons, Ms. Alma Romo who is a Parent Involvement Coordinator in the pro- gram. Ms. Romo. Good morning everyone. My name is Alma Romo and I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my involvement with Head Start. Twenty years ago without speaking English with a 4-year old child I walked into a small classroom and immediately I felt very welcome. After my child was enrolled in the class I was invited to participate in the class which I did. In my participation the teach- ers— the social workers — encouraged me to go to school. I start working to school and my first job at Frederick Douglass was a nu- tritionist aide. Then I was a teacher's aide, then I was a teacher, then I was a social worker, now I am a parent coordinator. Very often I hear people talking about the American dream. My American dream of Frederick Douglass helped me to fulfill that dream. To my involvement in Head Start I have grown emotional- ly, educationally, and now I am able to help other families, espe- cially the families who don't speak the language. What I love most about Head Start is that here's an opportunity for all of us. There is not the language barrier. It doesn't matter if we don't speak the language or we have an accent, there's always a place for us. These are the kind of programs that we need. Programs that help us, programs that don't judge us, programs that have the op- portunity to educate ourselves. Through education we can have better families because not only we help children, but our families, and if we have better families we can have a better society. I heard a lot of comments saying that we cannot attract qualified persons, but if we have an educational program through our Head Start I think we will have a lot of parents who can become teach- ers and have a better life. That's my testimony. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Ms. Norma Hollis follows:] 40 Norma Hollis GOOD MORNING/AFTERNOON My name is Norma Hollis and I am the Executive Director of Frederick Douglass Child Development Center in Los Angeles. The Agency is most unusual in that it is both a direct Grantee and a delegate Agency and currently provides Head Start and State Preschool services to 1,341 children and families in Central Los Angeles and the Antelope Valley which is approximately 70 miles north of Los Angeles. The Agency has applied for 1,462 additional slots through Head Start expansions. Within the next seventeen (17) months we expect to serve 2,400 children. I have been involved with Head Start since 1974. My involvement with Head Start has been as director of a 620 child delegated program, director of an 1,140 child directly operated Grantee program, consultant for large Grantees and delegate programs, and as a monitor for the super Grantee in Los Angeles. Before assuming my current position, I took a five year break from Head Start and worked in my family's business utilizing my Head Start management skills in a business environment. My perspective then is as a long-term Head Start supporter. I will focus today on the implementation of expansion and its relationship to the quality of services provided, and on the advantages of approaching Head Start management from a multi-disciplined perspective. The program that I currently direct serves families in the area of Central Los Angeles that was greatly affected by the recent civil disturbance. Many of the children we serve displayed overwhelming reactions from the disturbance and we continue to work, with and through mental health professionals, to assist these children to overcome and move beyond the experiences of the disturbance. In the Agency's Los Angeles service area alone there are almost 15,000 eligible Head Start children according to the 1990 census. This number has probably increased since the disturbance of last year. Even as the Agency increases the number of children served to beyond 2,400 it will still serve only 17 percent of the eligible children in the Antelope Valley and only 13 percent of the eligible children in Central Los Angeles. To move our agency to full funding, defined as 80 percent of eligible children, will increase the number of children served to over 14,000. Many perceive this as a challenge. We at Frederick Douglass see opportunity, and for the following reasons: 1. Additional families will benefit from Head Start services. 2. The Agency's organizational structure will be strengthened . 3. Larger, more attractive facilities become economically feasible. 4. Program quality will continue to be strengthened. 41 Testimony, April 8, 1993 Norma Mollis Frederick Douglass Child Development Center, Inc. Los Angeles, CA Page 2 The issue of serving more families is one that needs no defense here. With the long-term success of Head Start there should be no doubt that the services need to be expanded and offered to more families. My focus now is to look at expansion as an opportunity to strengthen the Agency's organizational structure and an opportunity to improve program quality. As an Agency of 1,341 slots we are already considered a large Agency. However, even with an annual budget of approximately $ 5 million, the Agency is unable to support an organizational structure that maximizes program quality and service delivery and gives staff reasonable job responsibilities that do not require wearing multiple hats. The most significant barrier is the lack of proper staffing. Head Start employees wear so many different hats that in a short time the energy of each employee is taxed beyond a point of rejuvenation. The issue of wearing multiple hats is the primary problem I experienced in previous Head Start experiences and the primary issue that almost precluded my return to the program. Since Head Start programs provide many additional services than private child care and require a very heavy burden of documentation, it seems that an Agency does not reach "critical mass" until it serves approximately 3,000 children. In assessing the requirements for this Agency to successfully implement an increase of 1,050 children within the next program year, the Agency evaluated its existing operations in a manner consistent with the methods of corporate development generally employed by successful companies in the private sector. Frederick Douglass' initial approach to the expansion was to first establish a model facility configuration. This has been accomplished by identifying sites that have a minimum of four classrooms as well as office space for component staff. It is our belief that the best quality services can be provided in facilities that house not only the classroom and teaching staff, but also the ancillary staff that support the component services. Our configuration of four classrooms allows us to serve eight classes in one facility and have housed in that facility at least one nurse, one social worker, one parent involvement staff and one educational child development supervisor. In this way, each component has improved opportunity to have direct contact, on a daily basis, with the recipients of the service. This staffing pattern also encourages timely communication among component staff 42 Testimony, April 8, 1993 Norma Hoi lis. Executive Director Frederick Douglass Child Development Center, Inc. Los Angeles, CA Page 3 which significantly improves the quality of services provided. The Agency's second approach to expansion has been made even more available as a result of the Head Start Family Information System (HSFIS) . The agency was in the process of developing a fully automated system when we were approached to participate in the HSFIS pilot study. As a result, the Agency will be fully automated for the next enrollment period. Without HSFIS we would have requested computerization funds through start-up costs for expansion. The Agency believes that the quality of the program will be greatly improved through the computerization of the Agency. The principal advantages are that the information collected by the Agency will be distributed to components in a timely manner, and that the management and executive staff will have access to detailed reports in "real time". It should be noted that the preparation of reports, many of them required by the funding sources, consumes a large part of management and support staff's time. The Agency's third approach to expansion has been to position the Agency so that additional expansion efforts will not require large numbers of administrative staff. Two additional key positions were added that will be constant probably through the full funding numbers. As a result, the only staff that will need to be hired in future expansions will be those who will deliver direct services. As these positions are filled, the Agency can program more funds in classroom materials and other supplies and equipment as well as training that will result in improved quality. The fourth approach to expansion was to identify a central office location that would not only enable a central kitchen to prepare meals for 2,400, but that could be expanded to prepare meals for up to 14,000 without additional expense. This is being accomplished in a facility that will not only house the central kitchen, but also the Agency's main office, as well as classrooms. The fifth and perhaps most important approach to expansion was to add a quality assurance component. The Head Start performance standards decentralize the program compliance issue between each component. In my experience with Head Start I have concluded that an independent internal auditor approach to program compliance is more sound particularly because it removes the responsibility for monitoring quality out of the hands of those who are responsible for providing it. Business environments encourage a quality assurance aspect and fiscal departments participate in annual audits. We at Head Start are in need of internal auditing/quality assurance also. 43 Testimony, April 8, 199 3 Norma Hollis, Executive Director Frederick Douglass Child Development Center, Inc. Los Angeles, CA Page 4 The final approach to expansion was to identify how far this configuration could take us. It is the Agency's view that the new Agency structure can accommodate up to 5,000 children without a major change in the organizational structure. Beyond 5,000 children, the Agency will adapt more of a corporate, divisional, decentralized structure with local authority, responsibility and control, rather than operate as a centralized Agency. The Agency believes such a structure will ensure a high level of program quality even at the levels of full funding. Some may find these approaches hard to grasp, and those who have experienced expansion and found problems in its implementation are probably overwhelmed by the thoughts that these concepts represent. However, there is a distinct reason why this Agency has been able to take such a broad-based approach to expansion, has already identified expansion sites, as well as specific costs of site renovation and is ready to move forward and successfully implement the expansion as soon as the green light is given. This difference lies in the experience, training and skills of the top administrators as well as the commitment of the overall staff. In my introduction I mentioned that I had a five year break between my last Head Start experience and my current position and that during that break I worked within a family business. This is an experience that is not afforded most Head Start directors or employees and one that will greatly increase the perspective of Head Start employees and improve the quality of programs. It should not be surprising that when an individual spends a great deal of time in a profession, the perspective of the individual begins to reflect the experiences within that profession. As an individual with almost fifteen years of experience in the human services field, I often felt at a loss regarding working in private industry. However, as I returned to the Head Start environment, I recognize that the few years away from Head Start have provided me the opportunity to grow beyond what Head Start alone could have offered. It also provided me a more broad based perspective of life in general that will better enable me to help prepare families to deal with the multi-faceted society in which we live. For this reason I encourage this committee to consider the advantage of multi-disciplinary training for Head Start Directors. This means training in the viewpoints and practices of private industry, particularly business management, human resource management, fiscal management, crisis management, grant development, conflict resolution, computerization and the like. 44 Testimony, April 8, 1993 Norma Hollis, Executive Director Frederick Douglass Child Development Center, Inc. Los Angeles, CA Page 5 As a new director approaches the position of Head Start Director, there is no manual to assist in understanding the overall function of Head Start and how, even with the best of intentions and objectives, forces can still prevent the meeting of goals for the children. It is essential that Head Start administrators both at the program level and within the funding agencies adapt to changes in the communities served by the programs, and that the politics of administering the programs do not interfere with the delivery of quality services to the children and families. To assure a program's success, these issues need to be addressed and appropriate training provided to give directors the potential for success. In conclusion, I would like to address the future direction of Head Start. The trends that I see in Head Start are the expansion of services to include concepts such as the Family Service Center, which the Agency is participating in with the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the expansion to provide services for prenatal through 5 year olds and their siblings and not only 4 year olds, the expansion of hours to provide full day programs and finally a component that assists families to understand the economic realities of this society. Additionally, Head Start agencies should seek to offer services beyond the basic Head Start program. This Agency is in the process of establishing a Head Start program as part of a redevelopment of the Dunbar Hotel, which is a historic building, which will include low cost housing for families. There is a real need for complimentary services to assist with housing, food, clothing and basic medical care for members of the family beyond the Head Start child. Serious consideration should be given to provide, and/or require, more formal training to directors and management staff. Running a Head Start agency is a serious business enterprise and should be approached in an this manner. Furthermore, salary levels of Head Start teachers, and other component staff, are well below salaries paid in private industry that require similar skills or education. If Head Start seeks to attract the best staff, then salary levels must be increased. Finally, I would like to leave you with a perhaps radical thought: The Head Start program should be expanded to include prenatal care through 18 years of age. An educational system based on the clearly successful Head Start model of community based, with health and social services components, and most importantly, parent 45 Testimony, April 8, 1993 Noma Mollis, Executive Director Frederick Douglass Child Development Center, Inc. Los Angeles, CA Page 6 involvement, might be the solution to how to overhaul the public school systems in this country. All the work we do in Head Start is lost when one child witnesses one shooting in a public school, or when children must experience metal detectors in order to enter school. This is an all too common occurrence that could be eradicated if the values of Head Start are placed in the educational system and the management competencies of private industry are placed in Head Start. This Agency stands ready to accept such a challenge. 46 Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Ms. Romo. [Applause.] Chairman Martinez. Now, I can understand your enthusiasm for her little talk. I have to share with you. I immediately realized that Head Start doesn't only help children, it helps the parents as well. This is really a worthwhile benefit. Next we'll hear from Cliff Marcussen. Mr. Marcussen. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Owens, Mr. Scott, I very much appreciate the opportunity to address issues related to Head Start with you today. I started as a Head Start teacher in the classroom in 1975 and have been with Head Start for 18 years. That experience in the classroom sold me on Head Start and I have been a dedicated and constant proponent of Head Start and have believed in Head Start for the full 18 years. I am now the executive director of a nonprofit agency that is a Head Start grantee. We also do child care pro- grams from the State department of education including the Feder- al block grant program and we have a child abuse counseling pro- gram in the agency and are able to meld several services together to service families in our region. There are nine grantees in LA County. You've heard from LA County schools, or from Frederick Douglass, we're the third LA County grantee you'll hear from and we have one more to go, Charles Drew. In our grantee we do not subcontract the program to other agencies. We operate all of the classrooms directly. Last and sort of in introduction we're very proud and very happy to serve a portion of the Congressman's district and I want to share with you that Marty has been a supporter of this program, from years back when he was our assemblyman before we sent him back to Washington he was visiting my classrooms and program in El Hombre and we appreciated his support all of these years. I would like to cover seven specific concerns about Head Start and these are basically issues that your subcommittee can do some- thing about as you reauthorize the legislation. First, is an issue you've already heard about, Full-Day/Full- Year. That's a service we need to provide if we're going to reach all of the eligible children we have to provide full-day/ full-year Head Start. A model that has been talked about to date because there has not been funding or really an organized model within Head Start to provide that is "wrap-around" and I'm afraid I have to tell you that wrap-around is a rather bad idea. The need of the parents, the need of the children for full-day is there. We ought to be providing a full-day Head Start, but administratively the wrap-around con- cept just does not work very well. Pulling together funds that are coming through the State Department of Education with funds coming through the regional office, to get them into the same com- munity at the same time does not work very well. 47 To try and mesh funds when you've got a Head Start program that shuts down at Christmas vacation, Easter vacation, over the summer, shuts down on individual days for staff training, and to mesh that with funding from the State for children who need full- day services and parents who are working and go to school and who cannot take a break at those times to deal with different cost of living differentials, different funding levels, and to affect a con- sistent program that works for parents and children is not effective with wrap-around idea. What we need is a real Head Start model within Head Start for full-day/full-year services. We have — and there's a law to provide full-day /full-year services, but a really consistent thought through model for that has not been developed and I think a national task force needs to be created with staff from the National Head Start office, the regional offices, and especially staff from grantees that are actually delivering the program and also have experience with childcare programs to develop a model drawing on all the best things we know from our existing Head Start, but also knowing what we need to do to meet the needs of parents and children for a full-day childcare program and develop a version of Head Start that will really meet the needs of those families. Second issue is facilities which is popular this morning and as the Chairman knows, obtaining facilities will be, as Head Start ex- pands, a major challenge for Head Start agencies and the bill the Chairman offered — the improvement act for Head Start will signifi- cantly assist us in that area. The legislation has not really been put into effect and the Chairman's comments earlier about needing to follow through with directions to the Secretary and to get direc- tions out to the regional office I think is exactly on target, exactly what we need to follow through and make sure that the law gets implemented in its full intent and that we do get the flexibility to begin to purchase land and property. Third is an issue that in the way a Head Start program operates in finding services versus delivering services. I'm talking about the health, social service, mental health, special education. Traditional- ly Head Start has funded coordinators to go out and search for services for parent from other organizations within the community. The problem we're facing and especially moreso as we grow is there are just inadequate services out there and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to spend $25,000 hiring a coordinator to go find social services that don't exist or to find special education services that you're not going to be able to obtain. Within Options Head Start we've taken — a few years we've start- ed to take a new view. We said, we need to both find existing serv- ices, but we also need to be prepared to directly deliver those serv- ices if we can't find them. I'm going to give you an example. In our special education disabilities component we now have a special education coordinator, disabilities coordinator that works to obtain special education services from school districts for our chil- dren. We're successful in obtaining services for about three-quar- ters of our disabled children from the school districts and she works with and coordinates and works with the school district on maintaining the services and acquiring the services for that three- quarters of our children. But for about a quarter of our disabled 48 children we are not able to obtain services from the school districts for a variety of reasons. Because of that we, within one of the last expansions in the last couple years put on a fully credentialed spe- cial-education teacher who now serves that quarter of the children that we could not find services for and directly. She goes out — her job is not administrative. She spends her time out at the sites indi- vidually and in small groups working with those children. So we're in a model where we both look for services from out in the community, obtain those where we can and we directly deliver services at times and hire the professionals and the people with the expertise and the capability to directly provide those services where needed and I think that's a direction that Head Start in- creasingly needs to go and one that there has been some reluctance to go down that path in the past. Fourth issue is home-based Head Start. We are the major agency in LA County delivering a home-based model and who is committed to a home-based model. We don't do home-based because we lack facilities, we do home-based because we believe in home-based. And I think the home-based program is a model that we need to contin- ue to develop. Recently in the last couple years the national and regional of- fices have put more focus on home-based and I think that focus needs to continue. We need people in home-based who understand a home-based model, who understand the goals and methodology of home-based, and in particular I specifically want to recommend that in any grantee or delegate agency that operates a home-based program there should be a coordinator specifically assigned to the home-based program to run the home-base and not just an add-on job onto the educational coordinator who runs the center-based pro- grams. That really is a distinct model and it needs its own coordi- nator within the grantee. The fifth issue, the family service center you've heard about and also parent and child center. These are two pieces added on to the basic Head Start program. Family service to obtain additional serv- ices for families, parent and child centers serving children age 0 to 3. These two programs are worthy of your continued attention. Funding from the appropriations and committees and I urge you to continue to look at them, particularly in our area with the number of children who are being born exposed to drugs that we really need one or more parent and child centers which would allow us to work with those children basically from birth on. And very much the parents also. Six is a comparatively low funding level. This is specific to my grantee. Currently in the various communities we serve we're only able to serve between four up to a maximum in one community of 17 percent of the eligible children. From my knowledge, this is our average — our ability on the average to serve children in our family is well below the national average. As a grantee we do not under- stand why there is this funding disparity and are, in our particular case, in need of having that disparity addressed. Seventh, I've saved maybe the most important to the last, is maintaining quality in the program especially as we go through rapid expansion. Head Start can deliver exceptionally high quality services, but unfortunately it has not always done so or all pro- 49 grams do not do so. I want to allow the participant who is with me to talk for a moment and then come back to the quality issue in my presentation because what she has to say and the story she has to tell you really ties in with this. So I would like to introduce Pauline Abu-Tayeh who is a former parent of Options Head Start. [The prepared statement of Cliff C. Marcussen follows:] 50 TESTinon TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE OR EUMAR RESOURCES CCKHITTEE OM tOKKtlOU AND LABOR U.S. ROUSE or tZPRESERTATlVES April 8. 1993 Quiraan Martinez and Meabers of the Coositt**, I appreciate the opportunity to address issues relating to Bead Start today. I as Clifford Karcusseo. I started out as a Bead Start teacher in 197S, in Alhamhra, and became dedicated to Bead Start. Later, I beccae the I>ir«ctor of a ssall delegate agency — bo small that 1 vas also the Social Services Coordinator, the Parent Involvement Coordinator, the Disabilities Coordinator, the Education Coordinator, and Career Development Coordinator. I also directly supcrrised the Eealth component, occasionally substituted for teachers, and took out the trash. I ac nov the Executive Director of a non-profit agency that provides Head Start plus child care plus child abuse counseling services in the San Cabriel Valley asd Kortheast Los Angeles. Head Start is a wonderful, effective, and cost-effective program. I would like to cover seven specific concerns about Head Start. 1. Full-Day /Full-Year . If the goal of Head Start is full ^J£diQg, Read Start must seriously address the need for a full-day/full-year Head Start program Rodel. A significant number of eligible children need a full-day frogram because their parents work or are in training. Only a full-day /full-year model will B>eet the needs of these children. The concept most talked about to date has been "wrap-around" — fiading state or local monies to provide care before and after Head Start. Rarely does this work. State child care programs usually have their own rules and eligibility criteria, expect to operate full-day thczselves , and cannot cope with a Head Start program that coirpletely shuts dovr; every sixaer, every Christmas vacation, every Spring vacation, and every time a training day is scheduled. Ry agency has S3 cillion in child care funding, and we dca't do a single class of wrap-around because none of the funding fits. Congress and t^e Clinton Administration should set up a working co^aittee of child development professionals, other professionals, Bead Start ataff people and parents to create a new and well defined full-day/full-year Head Start model. 2. Facilities. As Chairman Martinez well knows, obtaining facilities irill be a major challenge for Head Start agencies. The Chairman's bill to allow Read Ecsr: agencies to buy land and Uaildings must be inplemented in the next year, i-cluding specific policy directives a::d flexibility ir fueling, tc allcv arer.cie; to actually icplement this nev lav. 51 A^Bcict Till also D«ed to add coapatsat fftellity staff, froa plasBcra to rtpairiMS, and build thtir akills at botli starciag up a«w facilitlaa and ■alataininf tb«a. i. rinding $«rvice« va. Delivering Servteta. Baad Start agencias bav* traditionally hired coordinators to help parents find social, Bcdical, special aducation, Bental health, and other services from otbtr coonninity agencies. A fev jrcars ago siy agencf. Options, recognized that la some cases rofficient services just weren't available in tbe coimuaity. Instead of spcndlag our Boney looking for services that veren't there, vc have begun a tvo-sided approach. Ve obtain services vben tbey are available, but ve hire a professional and directly provide services vben tbey are not available. For Yxaaple, our Disabilities Coordinator can obtain special education services for about 3/4 of our disabled children froc School Districts. Ve kavc hired a cradentialed Special Education teacher to directly serve the other 1/A. Counseling services are in very short supply in our conmuaities. Ve ace there- fore hiring a Mental Health Coordinator vbo is a licensed counselor, and vill provide counseling directly to many Head Start faailicE. Head Start agencies need to change their thinking from just obtainiag services froc other agencies, to building the skills and delivering some services directly. A. Hoae Based. Options is the major Grantee in Los Angeles County which operates the Eome Based model of Head Start. The staff in this program ate teacher/ social workers. lach has a case load of 12 fasilies, and visits aost families each veek. Twice a month the families get together for a social axperieoce. This is a valuable model of Head Start, and meets the needs of many families. In t^e last two years the national Head Start Office and the Regioa IX Office in SiZ Francisco have put a new emphasis oc training for Home Based Head Start. This training should continue. I also recossend that every agency vith a Home Based program have a Rone Based Coordinator separate from the Education Coordinator who oversees traditional claserooc Bead Start sites. 5. Fagjlv Service Center and Parent and Child Centers. The new Faaily Service Center nsdel should be expanded. In addition an old model, the Parent and Child Center, which serves children 0 to 3 and their parents, should be expanded. In o-jr area, due to the number of drug expssed babies, we need a Parent and Chile Center. There is none. 6. Comperatively Lp-c Fundigg. Some Grantees, including Options, are still funded so lev they serve a smaller portion of their populations than normal. Options, for exanple, currently serves only A* to 175 of the eligible children in our comiTicities — well belov the national average. We do not understaad why this funding disparity exists. 52 7. MaJBf Ining (^lity. Finally, as you all kaov, Eead St«rt i« oa« of the Boat affective aocial aervice prosraas operated by the Federal sovernaMt. Thia ia largely because Basy Bead Start tcacbera, aocial vorkera, adainiatratora, and ether ataff becooe peraonally involved in the livea cf the parenta and children, and convey the hope, confidence, and belief in the faailiea that it cnicial to helping those faailiea grow. As Bead Start rapidly expands we auat Baintain quality aervices, ificlnding tbst poiEODal oonnectioQ betveee « (tmilj ud t ittff siu^^i;. Ii «£11 not. be easy to Baintain that quality — in fact it vould be all too easy for Bead Start agencies to becooe large bureancracies — vith ataff doing their narrow Jobs, and punching the clock. Kxpanaion Bust be carefully iapleaented to avoid this. ■ There are already too few qualified teachers, and many agencies find it difficult to hire qualified teachers. Adainistrative structures are sometiBea imprepared for rapid expansion. As Bentioned earlier, the nvcher of facilities ia inadequate. Bov do ve B&3age to expand and retain quality? I think I have at least four of the ansvers «c need. The first ansver is that the speed of expansion muft be adjusted far each agency. Khile ay agency has bandied expansion vithout aajor problems, and fully enrolled all new children vithin one to five Bonths of our grant awards, there are persis- tent reports of grantees and delegates vfao are far behind in the expansions they have already received — as much as two years. Kev expansion dollars should only be allocated to Grantees and delegates as they cac absorb them. Second, ve need to rethink the organization of large Grantees and delegates. When an agency has several hundred employees, and thousands of faailies enrolled, how can it avoid becoming a bureaucracy instead of being a personal, in-touch, caring, dedicated group of people vho share a coinut&ent to help faailies grow? Maybe a large agency needs to be able to break into two or more aub-agencies, each with its ovs staff, its own parent Policy Council, its own staff aeetings, and the flexibility to address its own needs. Third, the Regional Offices need more staff to review and assist Head Start agencies. Csrrently there are eo few Regional Office Head Start specialists, and so fev travel dollars, that it is impossible far then to keep track of all the Grantees, and know what is really going on. Eecestly two Head Start agencies in Southern California were involved in scandals and problems that made the news. 1 need to tell you that those aren't the only two, there are more. The Regional Offices canr.ct fully supervise this rapidly growing program without adequate staff however, and an adequate travel budget. Finally, Head Start agencies, the Regional Office staff, and the national office staff have nacy talented people who have been thinking about the future of Head Start. In order to aanage the rapid growth coding we need to rethink how we do things, and find new solutions to the new problems that are appearing. We need to bring our creative thinkers together in short-term national and regional think-tanks (a week to three weeks) to put those solutions together, and share thes with others. After 16 years in Head Start I an still absolutely sold oz this wonderful program. Thank you for letting Be share my thoughts with you. Cliff C. Karcussen, Executive Director Options - A Child Care and Huitan Services Agency i.C£ Angeler Cou:::y, Califortjia (818)280-422; 53 Ms. Abu-Tayeh. Hello. My name is Pauline Abu-Tayeh. I'm a former parent of the Head Start program and I am now employed with Head Start as an assistant teacher. I can't even begin to tell you, there's so much as to what Head Start has done for my child and for my family. At the time she was 3 years, 9 months and even before that, I mean, I was a total detriment to society. I mean, I — you know, I was just at the bottomless pit and you know, I was confused, lonely, you know, I didn't know what to do until — you know, — you know, I started — I was holding down jobs. I had an excellent job — years ago I had an excellent job as a computer operator and when you get into all this other domestic family problems you tend to lose sight of who you are and so I — with in mind my child started growing up and I was on AFDC and I realized I needed to do some- thing with my life and I didn't know what, you know, what I was going to do because just holding down — you know, I couldn't go back to computer operator because I didn't feel good about myself, you know, no longer, and so I was holding down all these other jobs and childcare became a problem, you know, and who was going to take care of my child and, you know, and the money situation. You know, nowadays it costs more money for childcare than it does to make that money at work. And so finally what happened was I did quit and I did go onto AFDC. With the public assistance they send out fliers on the Head Start program and at the time in our — in our cities, in the Covina area, in the West Covina area Head Start started coming out at that time. I was very fortunate and thankful that it did because I did enroll my daughter in the program. And with that it did tremen- dous good for us. Not just because I'm employed, but as a person, you know, just as where I'm at today in dealing with people. I mean, it's great because even my family sees how Head Start, you know, works. You know, if it worked for me and it works for other people as they see it now, you know, I mean, it's all over the place now. Head Start, and it's real great. I mean, it's a good feeling and the best part of it is when you have the staff — the quality staff that — I worked in another pro- gram and I've worked in different programs from Head Start and just the staff, the teaching staff — the relationships that you can have with your staff on a professional, but yet they have that per- sonality where they want to help you, you know, from the Head Start where I'm at and they did — the teacher that my daughter has is an excellent teacher and I'm really happy that she is em- ployed with Head Start also. You know, that's why we need to maintain and help our teach- ers, you know, so — and do what we can to help them in any way, because with that they're able to keep going forward and helping other teacher, you know, to get — or other parents to get to where they need to go, you know, in our society and, you know, so that's where I'm at today. I'm not stopping as an assistant teacher, I plan on becoming a teacher soon and with that I hope some day to also, you know, get into the office, but into like parent education. The parent education in the program is very, very important. I think we need more of that for our parents because at the time when my daughter was in the program they have a parent education work- 54 shop and that was a tremendous help for myself and for other par- ents that I talked with. And so that's where I'm at today and I'm real grateful for Head Start. That's where I'm at. [The prepared statement of Pauline Abu-Tayeh follows:] Statement of Pauline Abu-Tayeh, Participant, Options Head Start, South El Monte, California My name is Pauline Abu-Tayeh. I am a former parent and now employed with a wonderful program called Head Start. I am here to give a testimony of what Head Start has done for me. Head Start has given me many opportunities for growing and reaching to my full- est potential as a person today. I was a woman with a child who was in transition. I had just gone through a di- vorce, and I had also quit my job as a computer operator. I moved in with my mother where I raised my daughter for several years. I went from job to job to make ends meet for food, shelter, clothing and child care. Child care became difficult and as a result I ended up on AFDC [welfare]. Therefore, I stayed home and took care of my child. As my child began getting older, I began thinking about my situation and how I needed to get back to work. I then received a flyer in the mail through Public As- sistance about a Head Start program, helping low-income families and their chil- dren receive medical, dental, and psychological attention; but most important of all, helping children of a preschool age by giving them opportunities for enhancing their development and for fostering satisfying social interactions with other children. Before my child entered the program, I was confused and lonely and I had a very low self-esteem about myself. Then as my child entered the Head Start program at 3 years 9 months, things began to change. I encountered many friendly faces with smiles as I had not been involved with other people except for my family. I did not need to be afraid of saying the wrong things as the staff was warm and friendly. In the Head Start program, parent participation was a benefit for me. As I par- ticipated, I was able to see how my child progressed with her art, how she got along with other children and how she learned through many hands-on experiences. I was able to learn from the teachers of how to use effective words with my child at home and what many activities I could do at home with her for furthering her learning. I was also involved in another part of the Head Start program called the Policy Council made up of parents whose children are or were in the program. I served on this committee for 2 years. On the Policy Council it was a great feeling to sit in on interviews for hiring teachers, to go over budgets for future expansion, and to revise by-laws for the Head Start program. The staff, also at these meetings, made me feel comfortable when listening to my ideas as I expressed them. Finally, with the help of my child's teacher in the Head Start program, she talked me into taking a Biology class with her. Therefore, I went back to school. Today I am so thankful to Head Start for a wonderful teaching staff. This teacher is not only an excellent teacher for children but also an excellent teacher for parents. Helping parents so that they can help their child(ren) is what Head Start is all about. I have continued my education in Child Development and worked for another pre- school program. When an opportunity for assistant teacher's position opened with the Head Start program, I applied and got the job. It took a lot of work to be where I am today. Today, as I am employed as a Head Start assistant teacher, I am continuing my education in Early Childhood Education in order to become a full-time teacher for Head Start. Today I am an advocate for children and their needs as well as for their families. I sincerely express my many thanks to Head Start for everything. We need more of these Head Start programs in our communities to help serve the needs of families and their children of low income. Today I am not only successful as a teacher but also as a person, "a whole person," because of Head Start. Thank you. Head Start! Thank you for bringing me out of confusion, depression, and loneliness into a new way of being positive, happy, and above all, a sense of humor within myself. Thank you, again. Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Pauline. Mr. Marcussen. I have four specific suggestions in relation to maintaining the quality of Head Start as we expand. First I think we need to rethink the organization of large grantees and dele- 55 gates. The type of connection that you heard PauHne talk about that made it possible for her to grow comes only on a very person- al, person-to-person basis between a staff member who is dedicated, who is caring, who is going to reach out — reach out to the parents. Maintaining that dedication and caring and involvement in the staff is something that a program has to carefully think about and work to maintain it. It doesn't happen automatically. In my observations from when I was a classroom teacher looking at our small Head Start at that time and other social service agen- cies that had a large staff, one of the absolutely critical features was a staff that was small enough that the staff" knew each other and were talking with each other and were involved in each other. And when I was a teacher all of us knew that every one of us was pulling — everyone of us was going above and beyond, every one of us was working for the parents and children and there was no doubt. We kept each other fired up, we kept each other involved. It was the work back and forth, the informal dialogue between the staff that kept us excited and kept us from burning out. When any organization, it can be a Head Start or any other orga- nization, gets so big that the staff no longer can know each other, when you don't know all the other people you start to feel like you're a cog in a wheel, a part of a big bureaucracy and you start backing off and you start saying, instead of what can I do for the parents, you start saying what's in my job description and you start cutting back and you become uninvolved, you punch the clock and you do what you're assigned. So one of the things we have to do is we have to maintain small enough units that there is that fired-up enthusiasm and dedication to serving the children and families within the staff. At the same time we've also got to expand to serve more families and I think the answer is that our larger grantees and delegates must be able to operate the program in small groups instead of having one massive program, be able to divide up your program into kind of subprograms within your agency, not delegating it out, not subcontracting, but within your agency so that each smaller group of sites can have it's own staff, that staff have their own staff meetings, that smaller subprogram can have its own parent policy council, can have authority and power delegated to it to make decisions about meeting its needs with its own budget and direct its own fate. And the staff and parents and the smaller units will maintain that dynamic commitment makes a difference in Head Start. Dividing down into those smaller units and making them work in that way, I can probably do about 90 percent of that now under the current regulations. To really do that effectively, completely ef- fectively will take some changes to the Head Start Act and the Head Start regulations to really facilitate that dividing down. I think that is one of the most important things that this subcommit- tee can look at over the next 2 years. Secondarily, the speed of expansion must be adjusted for each agency. As you've heard referred to, there are problems in being able to expand. Fortunately my agency has been effective in han- dling the money coming in. I kind of need to say that up front. We've been able to move to full enrollment of the new children 56 we've been given within anywhere from 1 to 5 months receiving the new grant from our regional office. However, I hear persistent reports of agencies that are far behind, as much as 2 years behind in implementing their expansion and I think there must be a pro- cedure to reserve funds and hold back and to pass out funds to agencies as they are actually able to expand and utilize those funds. I agree very much with what Mr. Kennedy said about enough lead time. You get your funds up and you've got enough lead time to really put in your facilities and do a quality job of expansion. So that's the second issue is that regulating the speed of expansion on an agency-by-agency basis. Thirdly, the regional offices need more staff and it's unusual to have program people come in and ask for administrators at a re- gional office, but our regional office in San Francisco, frankly, cannot do any of the things we really need it to do because there simply are very, very few people up there trying to administer sev- eral States, a large number of grantees and a tremendous amount of expanding coming through. If we want them to monitor to ensure that quality is going on they need a few more bodies up there to actually go out and be able to look at programs, they need more travel funds. Their travel funds are very restrictive. They simply do not have the capacity to get out and look and know for sure, you know, which grantees are operating the quality program, which grantees need technical assistance and which grantees, frankly, may need to be closed down. Finally, Head Start needs to rethink with a tremendous expan- sion we're going through some of the basic things about how we op- erate, think about new innovative programs and to create new so- lutions for the new problems we are experiencing with expansion. I'd like to propose to you and hopefully through you also to the Secretary at Health and Human Services that think tanks be cre- ated to bring together national regional staff with grantee staff on a 1 to 3- week basis. I mean, I'm talking about fast-action work groups that get something done and don't meet for a long time, but bring this together with the national regional people to address specific issues, create a process for that and I think a lot of us have some very creative ideas and can be dynamic in solving problems. Thank you very much for the opportunity of addressing you. After 18 years in Head Start I am still absolutely sold on this won- derful program. Chairman Martinez. Thank you. Ms. Harris? Ms. Harris. Good morning, and again, thank you Congressmen Martinez, Owens and Scott for the opportunity. Unlike many individuals at the table I am new to Head Start and also new as a director and welcome the opportunity to sit before you and share some of my ideas and thoughts. Similar to what I have just heard, the whole idea of having a think tank is so important and this is an opportunity for me today to participate in such a process and look forward to many more. Let me give a little brief background about myself as well as the organization. Again, my name is Lynn Harris, I have worked — I am a product of a South Central Los Angeles community and have worked my first 10 years of my career as a psychiatric social 57 worker directly working with children and families and the next 10 years in a nonprofit corporation that served an agency — that served developmentally disabled children and families and did very much of the same kinds of programs in terms of case management and direct services to children and families. Again, I've been here with Charles Drew, University of Medicine and Science for a year and a half and I would like to say that we do have the unique distinction of being a program in a historical black university and that is the Charles Drew University of Medi- cine and Science. We've been a part of that program for 20 years. We celebrated our 20-year anniversary. Charles Drew Head Start does locate — it serves the community of Compton, Lynnwood, Para- mount, and a very small section of South Central Los Angeles around the King/Drew medical complex. We currently serve 1,441 children and with the expansion of next year we will be serving 1,774. We are ready in answering one of the questions earlier to provide summer services for our children this year and we will be providing those services to current children. So the issue of licensing facilities should not be one because as I said, it will be for current children. We surveyed our families, we sur- veyed our staff, 100 percent — close to 100 percent interest both from the staff as well as the parents. Our service area, currently we do serve 47 percent Hispanic chil- dren, 48 percent black children and a very small segment of the Samoan population. I would like to take a few minutes because I know one of your questions was what kind of things are you doing and what have you done through the years that's working. How has expansion helped develop programs. So I would like to focus on a few of those areas. Like all programs today you've heard Head Start has been for many years growing towards a full — it has always been a full comprehensive model delivery where we're really beginning to focus on families moving from a child-oriented program to a family-focused program and we have several programs operating currently and I would like to just highlight a couple of them. We have very successfully developed and implemented a pro- gram within our agency that has employed, like many other Head Starts, parents. It's our parent training program that s been in op- eration for over 3 years. We have graduated over 60 participants and 26 of those participants are actually currently employed in our program. That program is both an experientially based program where you receive on-the-job training as well as you are involved with two of our local community colleges. At the end of that expe- rience you are minimally — you have six units of credit and that is an entry-level position for our assistant teacher in our organiza- tion. We also have hired parents in other components of our organiza- tion. Our program has also expanded as focused to serve 0 to 3. We know that Head Start serves 3 to 5, we were able through a nation- al demonstration project to write a grant several years ago and were successful in developing a program for medically fragile in- fants which 98 percent are drug exposed. That program is still in current operation and has been allowed to continue under our base program. So we are serving 42 drug-exposed infants both in a 58 home-based component and a center-based component that is very successful and I look forward to the opportunity to continue to expand that program. I understand we can do that under the parent and child center funding under HSS. Another family-focused program within our agency has been within the last year the development of a family service center — excuse me, I'll get to that in a second, very closely tied in terms of title — family resource center. We were in collaboration and are in collaboration with the Public Law 99-457 special education com- mittee, the interagency coordinating council which is, of course, a national initiative to develop a family service center. That center came into fruition with some funding from the interagency coordi- nating council last year. We've been able to continue that program, I wrote a grant to the State department of developmental services and that program does continue because the whole focus is for chil- dren 0 to 5 years and helping families which children not only who have been identified with special needs, but children at risk and many of our children in this community are certainly at risk. That program is going very well. We have also been awarded the family service center, the pro- gram that you've heard many talk about today. We are in our first year of implementation of the family service center. We have been able to locate that program right above one of our current pro- grams. We do have a health clinic that we operate within Head Start. We provide direct services to children, screening services as well as immunizations and we've been able to locate that right in our Catchman area where we'll be serving families with severe needs in the area of substance abuse, illiteracy and unemployment. So as you can see, the recent expansion dollars have definitely created a family focus move for our organization and a lot of excit- ing initiatives. It has definitely given, of course, all of us more op- portunities to serve additional children and families. What I would like to talk about for a couple seconds, of course, and all of us are here to listen to these issues and that is, what are some of the challenging aspects of expansion. You've heard many of them already this morning. The issues of recruitment of quali- fied staff, similar to what I heard Ms. Hollis say, we're going to have to recruit close to that same number of additional staff next year, of course, for expansion. The on-going staff training needs to do program development and as Mr. Kennedy shared a few minutes ago, I applaud and ditto his recommendation to allow Head Start programs the opportunity to slow down, if you will, if it's not slowing down expansion, but it's allowing programs to start expansion, but not have the expectation of those programs actually operate with children and families so quickly. Planned growth is very necessary. Renovating and preparing multiple sites for State licensing, you've heard that comment al- ready this morning as well, the issues around licensing and getting facilities licensed with the State. I would also like to recommend, I think this has also been dis- cussed, when we look at expansion that we not only consider in- creasing the number of children, but increasing the number of hours that we serve children. The bulk of our children are served 59 on a.m. and p.m. model, 3V2 hours each. So as I look at expansion I would love to have the opportunity to take some of those dollars and create a longer day because many of our programs within Head Start currently are focusing on full self sufficiency in eco- nomic development and we, as I've said, have a parent training program where we are actually employing many of our parents. We need to have the opportunity to have longer days of service for our children so our childcare needs can be met. Also, as was said earlier, to be able to serve children that are younger and I understand, of course, the initiative is toward full funding and full funding will mean that we'll be able to look at serving children that are 3. Right now the emphasis have been on 4-year-olds in terms of limited funding. The comment was made earlier by Congressman Scott and I wanted to also make that comment, too, was in some of my com- ments in that we look at using some of the dollars because you don't hear a lot of — or at least I haven't about evaluation and re- search, so I think we need to look at doing more in the areas of formative and substantive evaluations and allowing programs to look at outcomes. We need to have the dollars and certainly the ex- pertise in the community to do that to look at what options work. Lastly, the comment around innovations and having the opportu- nity within the current regulations to really do some innovative kinds of things either some amendment to the regulations or as you've suggested. Chairman Martinez, Shalala Chairman Martinez. Shalala. Ms. Harris. Shalala, helping the regional office to allow us to do more innovative kinds of things because, of course, the regulations have the options that are available, but I think there are some op- tions that have been discussed this morning such as some more home-based kinds of programs, doing some programming with chil- dren in the homes via public broadcast. There are a number of things that we can look at in an innovative model, tie an evalua- tion component to it, look at it as a pilot and allow programs to do some of those kinds of demonstrations. Again, those are my suggestions. I would now like to turn over to two individuals that have been really instrumental and important to the program. One is Ms. Norwood. Carlis Norwood is our parent policy council chairperson and Carolyn Thurmond is a teacher in our program and they would like to say a few words with you this morning. [The prepared statement of Lynn Harris follows:] Statement of Lynn Harris, Director, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine AND Science, Project Head Start I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify at this hearing for the House Committee on Education and Labor Subcommittee on Human Resources. With the recent passage of the 1992 Head Start Improvement Act and the addition- al expansion funds generated for the past 3 years, Head Start programs are certain- ly faced with many new opportunities and some challenging issues. Charles R. Drew Project Head Start has expanded its focus over the past couple of years to a comprehensive family-focused model. We have very successfully devel- oped and implemented a Parent Training Program in our Agency whereby parents receive employment training and on-the-job experience in the classroom and in other entry level positions in the Agency. The Parent Training Program exemplifies family-focus strategies through its on-the-job training mechanism and offering cer- 60 tificated programs in several component areas of Head Start, including Education, Business Services, Administration, Health, Nutrition, and Support and Custodial Services. The experiential component is coupled with six units of college credit, of- fered in conjunction with two local community colleges. This program has graduated over 60 parents with as many as 26 parents becoming employed in our program. We have linked our child and family services to community and economic development programs in the community. We have coordinated employment development serv- ices with other Federal programs such as Job Training and Partnership Act [JTPA] and Greater Avenues for Independence [GAIN]. Our program has also expanded its focus to serve 0-3 year old drug-exposed chil- dren and their families over the past 4 years. The Medically Fragile project is an intervention program providing home and center-based activities for 42 children an- nually, in an effort to decrease the long-term developmental effects of these sub- stances, and positively impact the overall well being of the families served. Another family-focused program our Agency has developed during the last year is the Family Resource Center. This project, initially funded through a countywide local Public Law 99-457 Interagency Coordinating Council, developed linkages with community-based agencies to provide counseling, information and education services to our service community. The Family Resource Center has continued under fund- ing this year from the State Department of Developmental Services. The focus of the Center is to provide information, support, and training to families of children from birth to 5 years of age. The overall goal is to become the link and support be- tween the family, community and professionals. Family literacy services are also available. We have forged a partnership with the local public library in designing and offering an integrated, comprehensive Family Literacy Program. This program year, Charles R. Drew Head Start was also awarded a Family Serv- ice Center Research and Demonstration Project. The FSC is a 3-year project funded to provide services to families who are experiencing problems with substance abuse, unemployment and/or illiteracy. The recent expansion dollars definitely has given us the opportunity to serve more children and families. It has had a tremendous impact on employment oppor- tunities in the service community. We have been able to promote existing staff to some leadership positions. We have made available the opportunity for others to take courses and/or to go to college. Training and Technical Assistance funds have allowed Charles Drew Head Start to focus attention on upgrading and developing the skills necessary to assure quality services to children and families. Over the last couple of years, opportunities for marketplace adjustment in salaries have made us more competitive with attracting and retaining qualified staff. Expansion and new trends relative to the Head Start Improvement Act requires us to create a climate and culture of change throughout the organization. Growth and change is forcing us to look at everji;hing we do differently. We have reorga- nized and enhanced our organizational structure to shore up our quality assurance, supervision and communication systems. We are also in the process of automating the program and implementing a Management Information System. We are begin- ning to explore the area of facility acquisition. The ability for Head Start programs to purchase facilities will have tremendous impact on our community where we can make actual investments in the programs. The challenging aspects of expansion center around major issues of recruitment of qualified staff, on-going staff training needs, non-Federal share expectations, child development and administrative space, renovating and preparing multiple centers for State licensing. Maintaining quality while responding to rapid expansion streams is critical. Planned growth will become necessary. Our programs must pre- pare to become not just bigger but better. Short-range and long-range strategic plan- ning will allow us to continue to provide the highest quality of services. Allowing programs to plan and perhaps "slow down" expansion because of the potential impact it may have on the Agency is a recommendation that can assist us to better serve our communities. Also expansion dollars should consider increasing the number of hours per day children are served in addition to adding new children. In closing, I would like to say that managing Head Start's future involves manag- ing the change process, as well as building and maintaining organizational excel- lence. Managing the change process means moving beyond what we know and what we are currently doing, embracing change, and accepting challenges creatively. Cre- ating an environment in Charles R. Drew Head Start that is receptive to change with parent and staff partnerships will take us into the future. Ms. Norwood. Good morning. Again, I would like to thank those 61 Chairman Martinez. Would you get the mike for us. Ms. Norwood. Again, I'd like to thank those that made it possi- ble for me being here and able to share my Head Start experience. I am also fairly new to the Head Start Program. I've been in here for about 2V2 years and just to share my experience, I had become unemployed and I was looking for a Head Start — some kind of day- care because once I became unemployed my children could no longer attend the daycare that they were in. So through a friend I had heard about Head Start and I wasn't too familiar with it and then as I got involved they encourage you to come in. A lot of Head Starts and a lot of daycare centers would like for you to just drop your kids off and go, they don't want you to be involved, they don't want you to know what's going on inside the classroom, but Head Start encouraged that. And as I attended one of the center meetings it just so happened that those that were currently in an officer position was leaving and nobody else wanted to take the role and I said, well, why not. So I attended one of the PPC meetings, the Parent Policy Council meetings, and it opened up a whole new door for me because I didn't know Head Start offered so much and I didn't know that Head Start was not only a focus for children, but also focusing on the family. And as I became more involved with Head Start I found out that there was so much to know and learn and experience. When I came — also as the parent over here stated that — my self esteem was real low and I looked at myself as a little bud, but the flowers were wilting instead of growing. But as I got more involved in Head Start and as Head Start allowed me to participate in going into conferences over State — that's one of the main things that I liked about Head Start and that I like about Head Start, it has al- lowed me to travel over ten different times and seven of them being out of State and being able to experience other agencies and other parents in dealing with them and how their agency run and that I got the Head Start feeling now [Laughter.] Ms. Norwood, [continuing] and that I understand what Head Start is all about. When our director, Lynn Harris, mentioned the programs that we have, our parent training program was imple- mented by a parent that was able to attend one of the Head Start conferences. Our family service center — the resource center — was implement- ed by a parent and she brought it back when we have our planning retreats to our agency and they worked on it and they developed it and now it's in place. And a lot of us don't realize or understand the importance of parent's input. We understand that Head Start is a poverty program, but at the same time our agency has let us know that low income does not mean low intelligence. And that being poor is only a state of mind, but living in poverty is a tempo- rary condition and that we're moving on and beyond and coming out of it. It's just been a real nice experience for me. I've been able to — with the things that I've learned through Head Start I'm now PTA president over my boys' school. They are no longer in Head Start, but that's another thing that Head Start still allows you to be in- volved and be a part of it even after your children are going on. 62 Head Start is not only an entry level for children, but entry level for parents to come back and go on. Sometimes we need to be edu- cated and reeducated to the needs. We applaud the efforts of those in higher places that try to rid our community, especially Compton, that's been known now for homicide and gang violence, but we forget to zero on the littlest victims and that's our children. And as we begin to zero in on our children and bring it back to a family focused model, then we are getting at the broad picture — at the general picture of helping everybody. Head Start has allowed me to realize that by sitting in on our personnel committee when Mr. Scott mentioned, I believe, about having those that come in with educational background and years of experience that does not mean they can meet the needs of our Head Start children and families. You can have 15, 20 years' expe- rience, but if you just take that 1 year and do it 20 years over and over, you have not allowed yourself to take our standard perim- eters and stretch them to new innovative ideas and possibilities in reaching our children and that's one thing that Head Start has al- lowed us to focus on and to learn that it's okay to disagree and to tell those that at this time you cannot meet our needs. And it's just been a positive experience for me and I'm grateful for Head Start. Like I said, it's just been 2 ¥2 years, come November it will end my term being with Head Start, but it has allowed me to be an advocate for parents and for children. Right now I'm cur- rently in school and I'm going to be a substance abuse counselor in working with families and bringing them back — bringing back hope where they feel there is hopelessness. And I'm just grateful and I'm just glad to be here and I will continue my work and con- tinue doing what's necessary and what's needed for Head Start and I thank you. Chairman Martinez. Thank you. [Applause.] Ms. Thurmond. Good morning. My name is Carolyn Thurmond. I'm a teacher for Charles Drew Head Start, ex-county recipient and an ex-wife. I have been invited here this morning to share my testi- monial which began some years back when a Charles Drew recruit- er was going door to door discussing and handing out Charles Drew information. After reading the information and talking to the rep- resentative I enrolled my son in Head Start almost immediately. At the time I had grown bored with hours of soap operas day after day. I, at the time, was suffering with very low self esteem, also. When I took my son to the center I was constantly encour- aged to stay and volunteer my time in the classroom and so I did. I began volunteering in the classroom, on field trips, dental visits, parent meetings, workshops, trainings, fundraisers, committee meetings and award ceremonies and things of that nature. I enjoy participating and all along Head Start staff was encour- aging me to enroll in the community college and take some early childhood education classes. I had begun to feel confident so I en- rolled in the community college. Soon after a few classes I applied and got a sub-assistant position and began to visualize one day being self supportive. Realizing I really like working with children I continued to take classes. I soon applied for and got a teacher po- sition. Continuing on I put together a portfolio and was issued a 63 child development association credential for my competence in working with the children. I was recently informed that I will be filling a center director po- sition and that Head Start has been Rock of Gibraltar for me. Head Start helped me to get my life on the right track. Head Start helped me to become a positive role model for my sons and others, taught me to be self reliant and a productive citizen and I am now currently enrolled in Cal State University. Head Start has taught me to look at people as unique individuals and to love unconditionally. I am a product of Head Start and very proud to admit it to anyone with the interest to hear it. Thank you and God bless you all. Chairman Martinez. Thank you. [Applause.] Chairman Martinez. Now, after listening to all of you I've changed the terminology that we'll use to define the program. For now on it will be known as a life enhancement program. [Applause.] Chairman Martinez. Ms. Navarro? Ms. Navarro. Yes, I like that title because that's what it's all about. Good morning to all of you and I'm honored to be here. I have been involved in early childhood education for approximately 10 years. I came out of Head Start program as a teacher, prior to that I had private pre-school experience and now I am the field representative for approximately 800 employees encompassing all of the Head Start components except management. During the recent expansions of Head Start I have seen directors and staff go beyond the call of duty to try and address and deal with all the problems and all the excitement and everything that goes into expansion. In terms of the excitement it stems from the opportunity of extra Federal dollars being appropriated to provide and to expand the needed services for the Head Start children and families. The fatigue and the worn and tired faces comes from the process that's involved in the implementation of expanded services to children. But for the inception of Head Start, everybody that I've talked to that was there in the beginning of this program, over 28 years ago, you talk to them and it's like they dug from their gut and their hearts to make it happen. And we're still there. A lot of people out there give so much that it's almost indescribable. But it's very moving when I really reflect on it. Most of the frustration for everyone that I represent comes in terms of inadequate salaries and several of these issues have been brought out this morning. I get real concerned because the agen- cies that we represent are under one of the largest grantees in the Nation. There is great disparity as was mentioned earlier in terms of salaries paid to school district employees versus the community- based organizations. And I have to really stand tall for the commu- nity-based organizations because they have and continue to serve the majority of children in the Head Start programs. So I think that we need to develop some kind of a method, I don't know how, I would certainly like to dialogue with Mr. Kenne- dy and Dr. Gothold about providing equitability in salaries in these two areas. 64 The quality issues in terms of the program, what is provided for in the Federal regulations I believe very strongly should be serious- ly considered. I hear from the actual delegate agencies and provid- ers that there is a need for flexibility, but in terms of flexibility and pilot programs I have seen in double sessions and other options the deterioration of quality services to our kids. I have seen staff burn out, staff stress, and a lot of negatives in terms of the human resources that are utilized to service our children, okay. So I think that when we look at flexibility and look at options that we really need to think them out carefully about the ramifications that they may cause later on. One of the largest delegate agencies in Los Angeles County is currently being defunded and I'm sure that you have all been read- ing the media. There's — and I won't go into details about it, but the fact remains that this one agency certainly I don't attribute the de- funding process to double sessions, but I'm referring it to the qual- ity issue in that they did have double sessions in that program. Another option was tried by another delegate agency that we represent in terms of triple sessions. The director, when she wanted to implement it, called me and said, "Jo, what do you think?" And I said, "Wow!" I mean, I couldn't even conceive of that kind of a program being developed, but I said, "What do the employees say?" She goes, "Well, they're all for it." I says, "Well, let's give it a shot." She goes, it will just be an experimental basis. Well, from September until last week I had received no feedback either positive or negative and then all hell broke loose in terms of staff. They had been sitting on this whole idea because of lack of substitutes, because of intimidation to go to the director or higher ups to address the concerns that they had there. In terms of securi- ty measure, in terms of lack of substitutes, in terms of the facilities not being able to encompass not only the staff, but the children and what is necessary to run a good effective program. Chairman Martinez. Excuse me. You said triple session means three sets of children per day? Ms. Navarro. Three sets of children in one facility operating from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. with different staff, you know, there were different teachers in each session, but what happens is that always Head Start suffers from lack of substitutes, okay. So say for instance the morning teacher did her session and the afternoon last session teacher happened to call off sick, there's no substitute so one of the teachers in the other two sessions would substitute for this teacher. You know, I mean, so just the staff of it is — anyway Chairman Martinez. Did you ever have the same child in more than one session? Ms. Navarro. No. No. They were all different children, okay. It was just like operating three separate classes if we had three sepa- rate facilities because of lack of facilities again, here we go, talking about flexibility and options, okay. This is what this particular agency tried to do to speak to the issue of expansion. So I think that we need to be very careful and I really ask you to consider some of these things. Chairman Martinez. If I could make an assumption in what you're saying. 65 Ms. Navarro. Yes. Chairman Martinez. What you're saying is that you can't pro- vide true quaUty if you've got the kind of condition that requires the same teachers to start one class to have to stay over and teach another class. There's bound to be resentment in it, there's bound to be fatigue in it, there's bound to be what you termed earlier, burnout. Ms. Navarro. Burnout, absolutely. Low staff morale. You know, there's so many things that are happening to the staff out there that someone needs to speak to those that are providing the direct services to kids, because I believe as administrators and all of you sitting as our Representatives in Washington, the further away you get from the classroom, it's easy to make decisions, okay, as far as policy. But when the implementation goes down and it is the teach- ers, the educational component that are really with the children, okay, you're asking for miracles. Chairman Martinez. Well, that's one of the reasons why we're here holding these hearings. Ms. Navarro. Right. Chairman Martinez. It is because we want to know from Ms. Navarro. Right. Chairman Martinez, [continuing] you who are right there at the scene to tell us Ms. Navarro. Sure. Chairman Martinez, [continuing] what we need to know when we do make these decisions. Ms. Navarro. Sure. Chairman Martinez. One of the things that a member of this committee — I know Major Owens is very aware of it, Bobby is a freshman and may not be, but last year the reauthorization bills that this committee passed, we diligently went throughout the country holding hearings to that reauthorization getting the testi- mony and even the Chairman, Mr. Ford, made a comment on the House floor he had never seen in a good many years, anyone do as many hearings towards a reauthorization as was done then and surprised to see that many of the recommendations made by the people at those hearings, even a hearing held in his district were actually a part of the reauthorization. So that's why we're here. You do have some recommendations on the last page of your written testimony Ms. Navarro. Yes. Chairman Martinez. Do you want to get into those? Ms. Navarro. I would really like to comment on the fact that it may be my great sensitivities because I came out of the classroom, so I'm really sensitive about what teachers have to go through. So in the recommendations I do see the need for adequate com- pensation and fringe benefits for the staff. The need for national standards regarding staff qualifications, especially in the education component, the need for national standards for classrooms, appro- priate equipment, clean and painted facilities because I have seen the full spectrum here in LA County from poor to beautiful. The need to strengthen and encourage parent involvement in training and participation, the need for advanced management training which includes the skills we teach our children, socialization in 66 human relationships, because, again, in some agencies directors do not even have these basic skills. They may have the paper degrees as you've referenced to, but they really don't have this human ele- ment here. The need to keep and maintain the focus of the Head Start serv- ices and center-based facilities, the need for on-going training for all components to help address the changes in the types of prob- lems the families are facing today, drug abuse, community violence and gangs, the need for follow-up services to children and the fami- lies after they leave Head Start. The definite need for a better monitoring system by the grantees of delegate agencies and the continued STAR program. This was a pilot program and imple- mented out of the agency that I came out of. And I have received nothing but excellent and positive results from those who partici- pated in this program. In terms of the better monitoring system by the grantees of dele- gate agencies, I would also have to speak to the delegate agencies for the accountability of the grantee to them also. We support and welcome and applaud the expansion of the Head Start program, but we should be careful and ever vigilant to insure and maintain quality services. Finally the issue of compensation must be seriously addressed by providing adequate financial re- sources for salary enhancement and fringes in order for the Head Start employees to sustain and preserve the great success of the program. There is no doubt that Head Start is a vital service and the expe- riences they would be giving to the children's future. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Jo Navarro follows:] Statement of Jo Navarro, Field Representative, Early Childhood Federation, Local 1475, AFT, AFL-CIO Honorable Mr. Chairman and other distinguished guests. I am honored to be here today to express the views of approximately 800 plus employees encompassing all Head Start components, with the exception of management, that our local repre- sents under democratically won collective bargaining agreements that extend back to the mid 1960s. Since these hearings are composed to two panels. County Grantees and Private Grantees and Providers, I must state that I am doubly honored to be the sole voice of the men and women who actually deliver the Head Start and State Preschool services to the children and parents at the worksites. Our local represents eight del- egate agencies under one of the largest Grantees in the Nation. The expanded services to children have increased considerably during the past few years and I have witnessed Directors and staff take on the challenge with ex- citement, fatigue and frustration. The excitement stems from the opportunity of in- creased Federal moneys being appropriated to provide and to expand the needed Head Start services for our children and families; the fatigue stems from the work involved in order to implement expanded services but as has been demonstrated for the past 28 years, the Head Start employees continue to go beyond the call of duty because of a strong commitment to the Head Start program. Finally, the frustration stems from the endless effort involved in the search for adequate and affordable fa- cilities in the various area of high service need. At this point, the delegate agencies must go through a very long process to obtain licensed school sites that are in compliance with city building codes, etc. Due to the time frame involved in this process of opening new sites, some agencies have maxi- mized the use of existing facilities and staff by several options, [e.g. back to back classes, double and triple sessions, home based, etc.]. But by far, the major frustra- tion stems from INADEQUATE SALARIES paid to Head Start employees. A majori- ty of our full time employees are the "working poor" unless they are from two income families and they fall below the Federal poverty line for families. 67 There is a great disparity regarding the salaries of Head Start staff working for school districts and salaries of staff working for community based organizations, who incidentally provide the majority of services to children in Los Angeles County. There must be some method established to create equitability. The obvious rationale for the disparity is CBOs have more overhead costs than school districts but the Grantee must take this issue under serious consideration when they develop a rec- ommended salary schedule delegate agencies are to follow. QUALITY ISSUES The program options provided for in the Federal Regulations must be carefully considered as to their ramifications of maintaining quality services to children, (e.g. double sessions — a delegate agency operating this option did not provide the half hour preparation time, 1 hour break or additional support staff, etc.). The DS staff burn-out is another matter to be considered. The feedback regarding the home-based option is that it simply cannot compare to a center-based program in terms of social- ization experiences for the children. Triple sessions were tried as an experiment but I am glad to report that the Director will not be utilizing this set-up next year. The availability of substitute teachers creates a big issue at most of the agencies. This only confirms the child care staffing crisis across the Nation. RECOMMENDATIONS L Need for adequate compensation and fringe benefits for staff (e.g. full medical coverage, pensions). 2. Need for national standards re: staff qualifications — educational component. 3. Need for national standards of classrooms — appropriate equipment, clean and painted facilities. 4. Need for ongoing and advanced management training which includes the skills we teach our children — socialization and human relationships. 5. Need to strengthen and encourage Parent Involvement training and participa- tion. 6. Need for ongoing training for all components to help address the changes in the types of problems the families are facing — e.g. drug abuse, community violence, gangs, etc. 7. Need to keep the main focus of Head Start services in center based facilities. 8. Need for follow-up services — children and families are basically cut off after 1 year. 9. Definite need for better monitoring system by the Grantees of delegate agen- cies. 10. Continue the Substance Abuse Training and Referral Program [STAR]. There was excellent and positive feedback from participants re: the presentation, content and goals of this program. We support, welcome and applaud the expansion of the Head Start program but we should be careful and ever vigilant to ensure and maintain QUALITY services. Finally the issue of compensation must be seriously addressed by providing ade- quate financial resources for salary enhancements and fringes in order for the Head Start employees to sustain and preserve the great success of the program. There is no doubt that Head Start provides a vital service to our children and the experience is a beginning to their future. Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Ms. Navarro. Mr. Owens? Mr. Owens. Just let me just quickly get one clarification here. Do most of your programs serve two sets of children per day? Morning and afternoon? Ms. Brummel. Yes. Mr. Owens. They do? Mr. Marcussen. Yes. For clarification, Mr. Owens, in that there are two models in which programs can serve two sets of children. One is called double sessions where the same teacher teaches the morning class and teaches the afternoon class. The second is a tra- ditional model where you have separate staff for the morning class and separate staff for the afternoon class. 68 There have been increasing numbers of grantees in delegate agencies who have been moving from the separate staff model to the double session model where the same teacher teaches the morning and afternoon class which is an issue that your subcom- mittee may want to seriously look at. Mr. Owens. I have two or three questions I want to just quickly ask everybody and just raise your hand. The father of Head Start, Professor Ziegler from Yale has been very critical lately of the quality of programs and seems to want to put the brakes on in terms of expansion. Would you be willing to let him visit your pro- grams and if he visited your programs, do you think he would see quality Head Start programs despite all the problems? Ms. HoLLis. Yes. Mr. Owens. Each one of you? Ms. Harris. Yes. Mr. Owens. Good. Mr. Scott. You better say something for the record. Mr. Owens. For the record, all of the witnesses said they would be willing to have Mr. Ziegler visit their programs and he would see quality Head Start programs of the kind that he originally en- visaged when he founded the program. Second question, there is a really politically explosive question about full-day versus the present setup with two sets of children. Your statistics come out very different if you take the same funds you have now and move to full-day. If anyone of your programs move to full-day, you would probably have half the number of chil- dren to report enrolled; am I not correct? Ms. Brummell. Correct. Mr. Owens. If you had the option and were told you can have a full-day program and less children or you can continue as you are now, what would you choose? Which option? Ms. Brummell. I think for our county that we would like to see full-day be a viable option. I think that we need to look at the needs of the children and the families in specific areas and that might be in that area we're going to have home-based and that area we're going to have a half-day program. Mr. Owens. Well, I just want to get a quick — quick feel for it. Is there anybody who would like to make the case for continuing £is you are? Mr. Marcussen. This is a specific quick response. We would con- tinue most of our classes as half-day. We would put a few of our classes on full-day and we would make that decision based on the needs of families in each individual community. Mr. Owens. That's a terrible choice. It's a choice that you shouldn't have to make in rich America, but it's — I want to be able to deal with some of the people who are making this contention. The rest of it — the next point I want to make follows, and that is, why not just merge all these early childhood programs into daycare and have one big daycare program that you're operating under the same rules as daycare? Mr. Marcussen. If we could level daycare up to Head Start it might work. But we don't want to take Head Start down to the level that a lot of daycare programs operate at. Mr. Owens. Ms. Hollis? 69 Ms. Mollis. In terms of the full- versus half-day in LA — in our area of South Central, I have 15,000 eligible Head Start. I serve right now under 10 percent of that. If I go to half of that to be full- day, you're talking about 4 percent of the children eligible which I think would be very unfair. Mr. Owens. That was not a fair question to throw at you like that. Ms. HoLLis. It isn't. Mr. Owens. And ask for a short answer, but you need to think it through because we're going to have to wrestle with that. Is it better to serve more children for a little while and let them have that experience or is it better to have a full-day program so that parents who are working can be able to participate and know their kids are being taken care of. You don't have somebody indicating you have five providers for one child. We have to think that through and we, you, us who care about Head Start have to come up with some hard answers to deal with the people who look at sta- tistics and only statistics. Ms. HoLLis. I think that one way to look at it might be rather than either or, you might think of it for future funding you might do strictly full, but not to reduce the numbers that we have now. Mr. Owens. But it will reduce the number in the future. Ms. Harris. Sure. Mr. Owens. You reduce the number by half if you're going to have the same amount of money. Chairman Martinez. Would the gentleman yield on that? Mr. Owens. Yes, I yield to the Chairman. Chairman Martinez. One of the things that drove the suggestion for full-day is what you referred to as a particular need for a par- ticular kind of child and family. Now, it would seem to me that rather than doing as we have done so often in Congress developing the notion that we're going to fix everything for everybody and the best option is a full day for everyone, and reducing the number of the kids is to develop a specific program. Maybe I can draw an analogy in Job Corps. Job Corps was specifically designed to be a residential program. Young people moving — being moved out of a bad element into a positive element with all of the things they needed to be able to fully adapt themselves to the training they were receiving and graduating successfully. They came up with the idea that, hey, maybe we could serve — maybe residential wasn't necessary because it was too expensive and didn't reach enough people. So they come up with the option of saying that a certain percentage of the total fund could be used for nonresidential. Then the program began to move to all nonresidential. Supporters of Job Corps resisted and maintained that if there is instance where non- residential will work for a particular individual that they should have that option. What I'm suggesting to you now is if the option were that a percentage of the eligible children who specifically needed it, and there were a criteria set for determining who it was that needed this, would that be a better alternative? Ms. Harris. Yes. That was going to be my comment — or sugges- tion. We just surveyed all of our families looking at this very issue, the current families and we received the response of 48 percent of our families who were very interested because they either were in- 70 volved in job training programs or working or wanted to do those things. Forty-eight percent of our famiUes said they would need and want currently if we asked them we had available a full-day program, and the other percentages of families were happy with the way it was. So allowing the agencies to have some flexibility in the local decisionmaking around the expansion because right now the expansion means more children. When they say they'll give you an expansion allotment based on your per capita, you're going to serve X number more children and it is not based on a full-day model. So I think that's what is critical looking at the local need and allowing us the option and the flexibility. It's not an either/ or. Chairman Martinez. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. Owens. Just one more general statement. That Head Start feeling, you know, that you talked about — you're looking at a guy who cut his teeth in public service as the Executive Director of a delegate agency and then I later became a commissioner for the Community Action Program of New York City, the largest grantee in the country and Head Start was a major part — the most inspir- ing part of the program. I know the feeling and it drove sort of the rest of the community action program because of what it accom- plished and the way it set people on fire. I don't feel that anymore in New York, you know. It's not there. Head Start has sort of lost and I wondered if you found the same thing happened here in terms of the impact of the overall program in terms of the public's awareness of it. You know, how conscious are they of the great things that you're doing or how do you inspire people outside of the program. You are a parent who has had a great experience, how many other parents are you able to reach to get them to either want to get on the waiting list or get into Head Start, what kind of over- all— it's life enhancement program as the Chairman said, but you know, we've got a political problem in terms of the drive to look at all early childhood programs in terms of they're all the same and why don't we just merge them all and Head Start is special and that special Head Start feeling has to be kept alive in what it does for not only children, but for the parent, for the staff. The fact that it is special and flexible, you think you're not flexible, there are a lot of problems, you're far more flexible than any other govern- ment-operated program. Do you care to comment on that? Ms. HoLLis. Perhaps the Head Start feeling has to do with the comprehensiveness of Head Start as you called it a life enhance- ment program where daycare and childcare are strictly educational programs. Head Start is a life enhancement, it has the parent in- volvement, it required nutrition, it requires all those aspects that actually are enhancements of life. I think that's where the feeling comes from. Mr. Owens. And while you have the mike, Ms. Hollis, I do note that you talked about the paperwork barrier. Ms. HoLLis. Yes. Mr. Owens. Can we say that you would say — well, how long have you been in existence, your program? Ms. Hollis. The program, 28 years. 71 Mr. Owens. Would you say that after the program has been ex- istence for a certain number of years, maybe 3 to 5 years it should not have to reapply for funding, it ought to be automatic? Do you want to get that on the record? Ms. HoLLis. Well, what I would like to put on the record is that Head Start is funded on 3-year cycles. You have a 3-year period of cycles. We just started our first of the 3 years. And then you're re- quired every subsequent second and third year — the first year you write a comprehensive proposal, the second and third year you must again write proposals for the same continuation of that 3 years. Once every 3 years should be sufficient provided your re- views are okay, provided your information, your PIR is satisfactory, once every 3 years should be sufficient. Mr. Owens. There are a number of government programs that don't require any application for renewal, they just get their money. Ms. HoLLis. I'm sure they will. Right. Mr. Owens. So we ought to talk about some reasonable point where an agency has demonstrated its competence to perform and barring some major catastrophe which would be shown up in the monitoring and evaluation they should receive funding with a min- imum amount of paperwork and I think that Ms. Brummell. Mr. Owens Mr. Owens. On an organizational structure I'm surprised, consid- ering the early days of Head Start when they had all these book- lets and pamphlets, models telling people what to do, you said you can't find models available on structure and operations. I guess they stopped somewhere developing those kinds of Ms. HoLLis. Somewhere the information has to Mr. Owens, [continuing] that kind of literature. Ms. HoLLis. Yes, it has stopped, and the fact that there are so many people doing different things, it needs to be made available. The national conferences that we have do provide that somewhat, but everyone can't go to that, you can't attend all the workshops. There is no documentation that is sent. Routinely there is no Mr. Owens. There is no dissemination of information via little booklets that they used to have, there are no tapes, no videos. Ms. HoLLis. Not in the organizational structure. Mr. Owens. They haven't joined the 20th century in terms of dis- semination? Ms. HoLLis. Not automation nor information. No, you're right. Mr. Owens. Yes, Ms. Brummell. Ms. Brummell. I was going to mention, in the performance standards the only component that addresses a ratio of staff per the size of your program happens to be in the nutrition component. And it says that for so many centers you need to have a nutrition- ist. I think it needs to be stated that for all components once you get to a certain size that there needs to be sufficient staff to help facilitate and provide the quality in the program. That's the kind of management instrument we're looking for that when you have — when you reach 1,000 children, this is what your staffing pattern should look like on the component level and the management level. We know how to do the center base. We know what are good quality standards for children between our community care and li- 72 censing here in California and the performance standards. We all really are committed to that, but then it gets to the management level of making sure that this is an effective program. Those are the kinds of things that we're asking we have to sometimes ration- alize and justify to the regional office to get that support staff. Mr. Owens. And you have to have 22 pieces for each enrollment and 2,000 children produce 52,000 documents. You know, you really need some models. When you bring out a computer technician, Mr. Marcussen, you wanted to address that issue. Mr. Marcussen. In connection with the refunding application in our agency we believe strongly in the importance of a new plan- ning effort every year to look at what we're doing, where we're going and make sure that we're targeting our resources in the best way and we're meeting the needs of our parents. We also believe strongly that it's important for the staff and the parents to be very involved in that and that one of the things that leads to the dete- rioration of a program is a failure to really focus on and spend some time looking at what you're doing, rethinking what you're doing and planning. What I have stressed to the staff from our Head Start is, your planning process is your refunding process. You don't make them into two separate activities. That's a waste of time. Make your re- funding work what you really do to specifically plan for the next year and we've put very detailed plans about what our goals and objectives are. Consequently, doing the refunding application every year is not really a problem for us, it's not like it's a lot of excess paperwork because it's a very practical process that keeps us on target to maintain a quality program and I think if to the extent that agencies really utilize their refunding process as their real planning process it shouldn't be a problem. Mr. Owens. Thank you. Ms. Harris, you had a comment on it. Ms. Harris. Well, similar to the issue that was being addressed around the refunding and I focus particularly on this year's summer funding. If possible, if you could bring something to bear on this summer and the speed and the rapidity that we're going to have to respond in terms of applications, that was just going to be my comment because, you know, we did get the guides a couple of days ago. There are four funding opportunities within the summer Head Start for which they all do require applications. And it would be very nice since we are currently funded, we are doing well and we're providing services to these children, we're saying we're going to provide for the same children that we would not have to go through all of that paperwork, four different applications, for this summer, that will all be due May 3. I just wanted to make that comment and particularly this year in such a short period of time. Mr. Owens. I think we ought to ask the Chairman to use his in- fluence and see if he can save you from that. [Laughter.] Mr. Owens. We don't have to write a new law, maybe with the friendly administration Ms. Harris. Exactly. Mr. Owens, [continuing] in power we can deal with that right away. I'm going to stop here because I'm hogging the show, but I 73 have pages and pages of questions I'll talk to you individually about. I just would like to end with one final comment. Mr. Marcussen, you are the model of what a director should be and I really enjoyed listening to your remarks about how the small group — what I call the micro-inspiration that you keep going there and I made a note, well, there's a missing link there. There's a need for some macro recognition, too. We need some kind of Acade- my Awards for Head Start that's broadcast nationally. [Applause.] Mr. Owens. A guy like you ought to get a reward and the par- ents and the teachers, we ought to be able to raise the visibility of Head Start and I think it would help some of that burnout situa- tion. You work together so closely for so long until you begin to cease inspiring each other if you don't have some recognition from outside and I certainly wish we could facilitate that. But on that I'll close, Mr. Chairman, and ask my questions of the individuals later. Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Owens. Mr. Owens is right, you know. A while back we wrestled in Congress and our commit- tee with the notion that, to inspire great activity in schools and reward the teacher of the year. The only problem with that is you wind up with a million dollars to throw a great big ceremony at the White House with the public relations venue for him and not necessarily — I think the teacher of the school should want that mil- lion dollars spent on the school system not on him or her, but there is some merit to what he says. I was very privileged to attend a conference in Virginia Beach. I made a presentation there and one of the things that made me feel very good about being there was the fact that all of the people there from Head Start organizations all over the country were all enthused about being there and all enthused about exchanging in- formation and I fmd where the main vehicle for dissemination of information should be the agency that has the responsibility of the program itself. In the past administrations I understand why that didn't happen, you know, they figured the least they told you, the least you would request of them and that was where they wanted to be. But I think with this administration — as Mr. Owens has sug- gested— I think it's going to be a lot easier for us to be able to not wait for regulations or a change of the law or implementation of a new regulation, but just suggestions to Secretary Shalala. And I'm going to tell you something, I guess I would not be speaking out of turn in speaking for you that we were singularly impressed with her as a totally functional person able to carry out the responsibilities of that office, but also in the fact that it seemed to us that in any of our requests and any of our responsibilities we would get a lot more response than we have over the past 12 years. Would you say that's true? Mr. Owens. No doubt. Chairman Martinez. So I think that some of the suggestions that have come forth from this hearing today we will be trying to get those implemented by executive order of the Secretary herself rather than waiting for laws or regulations. Mr. Scott? 74 Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have quite a number of questions. Some are somewhat short. Let me ask Ms. Navarro, did I understand you to say some full- time salaried teachers don't have medical benefits? Ms. Navarro. Absolutely, yes. That is correct. Even when medi- cal benefits are offered, they simply cannot afford it because the employer pays a certain percentage of the premium, and some- times they just simply can't afford it. Mr. Scott. Did I understand Ms. HoUis to say that the salaries for Head Start are calculated at seven-eighths of the other teach- ers' salaries because they only teach seven-eighths? Ms. HoLLis. For our program. Now all programs are not like that, but for our program they are at only 7 hours. Mr. Scott. What about those that only have half-day? Ms. HoLLis. The teachers are generally paid for a full 8-hour day because the half-day they are not teaching they are expected to do home visits, paperwork, et cetera. So most programs do have a full 8, 40-hour per week employment, and we have 35 hours per week. Mr. Scott. One of the arguments in favor of half-day rather than full day, one of the arguments is that going to full day you do not increase the instructional time because by the time you add in lunch, recess, and everything else, the marginal additional instruc- tional time is very small and, essentially, all you have accom- plished is high-cost daycare. Does anybody want to comment on that school of thought? Ms. HoLLis. Head Start is thought of as a program of socializa- tion, and socialization is what the children obtain in a greater timeframe. Lunch is provided during the half-day. It is the nap that would be required that would make the difference, and that is generally 1 hour to 2 hours. So you generally have another 1 hour to 2 hours that the children would be socializing, and that is the Head Start objective, and would improve on their quality of life. Mr. Scott. And there would be a significant additional benefit with the full day? Ms. HoLLis. When you add that benefit to the fact that it would allow the parent to have full-time employment, then you have the greatest benefit because, as Mr. Kennedy had mentioned, the par- ent's education and employment is related to the child's potential for development. Mr. Marcussen. With the current expansion, we have applied to the regional office to open one class of full-day, full-year Head Start as kind of a pilot to get our feet wet, and to learn before we would maybe jump into this big time. Mr. Scott. And what about evaluation? Mr. Marcussen. We don't have a specific evaluation component, but we need to. In terms of the model, what we intend to do, from 8 to 12, that part of the day, we will operate a very traditional Head Start model. That will be the Head Start half-day. Before that, in the morning and after 12 o'clock, children will attend only those hours that the parent needs to. All kids will attend 8 to 12, but they will only attend additional hours based on the parents' need because the parents are working or in school, and those will be a reduced type of program. 75 If we ran kids for 8 to 10 hours the way we run them for 4 hours, in terms of how much we pack into those 4 hours, we would wipe those kids out. The teachers would be wiped out. Nobody could take that intense a program for 8 to 10 hours. So we are going to run a very reduced program before and after, and it is a much more relaxed, slow-paced program, both for the kids and the par- ents. The kids will get the full impact of Head Start during the main 4 hours. The real benefit for the expanded hours is to the parent. Because we are going to be able to kind of reduce down what we do during the rest of the day, we are not going to try and operate like we do the 4 hours the full 8 hours, our costs are not going to be double the half-day, they will be less than double. Mr. Scott. One of the things we are looking at is quality, and everybody has talked about quality of service, some in terms of ratios and whatnot. How do we measure quality to determine whether or not one program is high quality and the program down the street is not as high quality? Chairman Martinez. Dead silence. Mr. Scott. That is the problem we have. Let me ask another question since we didn't do very well on that one. Qualifications of staff, you have met the paper qualifications and other qualifications, how do we make sure that we have the highest quality staff in Head Start? Ms. Navarro. I would like to respond to that, since I did make a recommendation. When I specified the educational component, I really believed that. I came into the Head Start program with a Bachelor's Degree in Child Development, and was hired as a Teach- er II for $1,100 a month back in the early eighties. Mr. Scott. Had you taught in the public school system how much would you have gotten? Ms. Navarro. Back then, I really couldn't tell you, to be frank. Mr. Scott. You would have gotten more. Ms. Navarro. Absolutely, there is no doubt about it. The prob- lem that I see is that we need almost a dual kind of training. You can have the education in terms of child development, but when I was put into the Head Start Program coming from a Montessori, I mean a drastic difference in what the curriculum is, okay. I was not prepared to deal with the kind of population that Head Start services. So even though I had the education, it was a real shocker for me that first year, and I thought, will I survive because, first of all, you cannot be judgmental, and put labels on parents because of their circumstance. The other thing that is happening that I see now in the parents that we serve, because of the economic condition of this country, we have parents that are in the program that have — I met one just lately that is like 1 year away from a PhD degree, but because of circumstance she is in and qualifies for the Head Start Program. So we are talking different levels of education, and you are right, I think one of the people made a comment in terms of, just because you are poor doesn't mean you are ignorant, and that is true, and it also doesn't mean that you are not educated. So the qualifica- tions is like, if we profess that the whole concept of Head Start is to bring our people in, parents, train them, profess education, tell 76 them that education is the key to upward mobiUty, and then hire them and pay them poverty level salaries, it is almost contradicto- ry- So what I am saying in terms of education in the degree, the paper process is just like validity so that we can claim the dollars. I guess that is what I am saying. Mr. Scott. One of the things that we are kind of talking around but not really saying is that some qualifications that we are not putting down on paper, the fact that, as you have indicated, you were short of significant training to enable you to effectively deal with this particular population. Ms. Navarro. Absolutely. Mr. Scott. It is a specialized kind of teaching. It is much more difficult, and we pay teachers less and don't require any more skills and, therefore, we are not getting the full quality that we ought to have. In fact, for this population, we ought to be paying teachers more, and having not only the traditional paper qualifica- tions, but additional qualifications that they have the caring, or whatever we are talking around, to enable them to draw out of the students what we are trying to — or get into the students what we are trying to get into them. We haven't described what that extra qualification is, or set of qualifications. Ms. Harris. Chairman Scott, it is difficult to describe them, but in answering your question of how do you maintain it, or how do you develop it, I think that is our job at Head Start, development. We are talking about life enhancement, we are talking about devel- opment all the time, and I think the whole area of training and development more dollars need to be spent. I know there are train- ing and technical assistance dollars, more dollars, more time, more planning, again more evaluation around which models work. We are looking at how we can assist the degreed person that is coming in, if they have not had a communications-based experience, or have not had the training or the personal experience to deal with certain populations, they receive that training. We are talking about upgrading the skills of individuals, who certainly have the commitment, who have the desire, who are working in the community to get the skills that are necessary to develop the children along the lines, and the families along the lines, and very multiple conflicts kinds of problems. Head Start, 25 years ago, the families that are coming in, the needs of the community are certainly very different today, particu- larly in certain communities, and certainly all communities, and they are highlighted even more so in certain communities where you have children and families who are living and working in es- sentially almost war zones coming to work with fear, and all the issues that are dealing with the problems around, post-traumatic stress syndrome, which we are all very familiar with. Also, I think we need to look at, as the Chairman mentioned before, Mr. Owens, some kind of staff recognition and training. It is not only staff training, but staff recognition prograrns, and staff in- centive programs, build into place those kinds of things and really continue that Head Start spirit and give recognition to the teachers that are doing well. 77 There is a model in the system that is not a new one at all in early childhood development in Head Start, CDA, which was just mentioned by Ms. Thurmond there, that is excellent. The creden- tialing, I think more of that in terms of looking at performance- based evaluation, having evaluations, having teachers assessed and trained in the classroom, and having performance-based instruc- tions, developing career development programs, having within your personnel policies and procedures systems that speak to employee evaluation that is performance-based, and building in development plans on how they can gain the quality that you are looking for. So it is a multi-level kind of thing. It is career development, it is per- sonal development, it is staff recognition and training and, I think, as an agency, we have to build those systems and develop those protocols to help maintain and build and upgrade quality in who we are working with. Chairman Martinez. Will the gentleman yield? When you do all of those things, and you did mention quality, you have improved the quality of the delivery, right? Ms. Harris. That's right. Chairman Martinez. Doesn't that improve the result as far as the child and the parent are concerned? Ms. Harris. Absolutely. Chairman Martinez. And isn't that what the definition of qual- ity is? Ms. Harris. It certainly can be. I mean, I keep hearing questions today, and I think they are good questions, I have those questions, too, around are we measuring them, how are we measuring, and what are we doing in that measuring, and I think there probably could be some more attention given to that area. Chairman Martinez. The gentleman from Virginia asked the question to which he got a deafening silence. What is quality? Ms. Harris. Right. Chairman Martinez. When you are hit with a question real hard and fast that way, sometimes that is the result. Given some time to think, I am sure you could probably all come up with a real good answer, but let me maybe give you a little head start here. There is another program, the Perry Preschool Program that has always been defined in glowing terms of the utmost in quality. Now what they describe as quality is, they pay their teachers more, number one; they train their teachers better, so they get a little better teacher; and then they design a curriculum that evi- dently is designed to achieve certain results that are much more far-reaching than the results we have seen from Head Start. Some- times they claim there is not the need for follow-through, which we haven't really been able to learn fully, and follow-through was a follow-up on what you gain in Head Start, follow-through was sup- posed to keep you going. They claim that in the Perry Preschool Program there isn't that lag in the third or fourth grade that takes place with respect to the recipients of Head Start. I don't know if that is true or not. They claim that, based on their statistics about Head Start, really gives a child a better chance to complete school and more apt to complete school. They have a lesser dropout rate, less teen pregnancy statistics among those young people that have received 78 Head Start, et cetera, et cetera. But the fact is that, whether or not Perry Preschool is a better program, I don't know that you can say that categorically because we have seen instances in different places around the country some terrific Head Start Programs from the dedication that has gone into them. So if we come back to the question of quality, and you have some time to think about it, I think you can easily say that the quality you need is better classroom facilities, number one, more money so that you can improve that environment that the child is in, so that the child will get more out of it; the more involvement of parents, the money to be able to involve the parents; the better qualifica- tions in the training, or the better qualifications of the teacher be- cause they receive better training; and all those things, I think, are the things we are really talking about when we talk about quality. Does anybody care to comment on it? Ms. Harris? Ms. Harris. I agree with you. I think the silence came down on the question around measurement. I think the question was, how do you measure quality, and I think that is where the silence came. We could all speak to what a quality program looks like, and cer- tainly we know when we walk in the classroom, we can feel it, we can see it. Again, you can see it as represented in terms of what is happening in that family. But when you begin to talk about measurements, I think that is the question I think we got quiet on, and I think that is where we could probably do some more work in looking at what are the vari- ables, what are we really looking at, because it is not just academic achievement, as has been stated here today. We are developing so- cially competent individuals, little ones, going into school, being prepared, excited, and ready to learn, and that is what Head Start is all about. It is not just, do they go to school, particularly it is not, do they go to school, necessarily, knowing their A-B-Cs and pre-reading. I mean those aren't the kinds of things that some Head Start Programs and curriculums are looking at. They are looking at curriculums that rejuvenate and get families and children ready to learn, have them with positive self-esteem, and those kinds of variables, if you will, are not as easy to some- times measure, but I know that they are out there, and I think that it is, again, allowing some time, getting some resources in, and allowing programs to have some of the expansion to also look at, or whatever dollars, to look at these outcome measures that can really enhance the overall program. Chairman Martinez. I yield. Mr. Scott. Thank you. I am not sure whether I am picking this up or not, but I sense that it is better in choosing staff to pick good people that have the minimum qualifications, and then train them and give them sup- port as they go rather than try to pick people with better paper qualifications? Ms. Harris. Again, it is very tough to answer that question on an either/or. I wouldn't necessarily say that. What we have, in many cases, are a lot of good people in Head Start right now that necessarily don't have all the degrees. So we are talking about working on developing and enhancing the skills that are necessary 79 to do the work with the needs of the children and the families in those communities, and then, many times, because we are inter- viewing all the time, we have individuals who come before us who are degreed, and you can pick up your interview process, your re- cruitment and your interview process is very important, the kinds of questions that you ask of individuals, to really get at those issues of, do they care, are they committed, do they have a real sense of what the values are of this community, can they work well with this community. So it is not an either/ or because we need the ex- pertise as well. We need the theoretical training, the expertise will assist us, but it is getting at those individuals who do have both, and who can work with us. Mr. Scott. Do you get evaluated at all on that interview process to make sure that the people you are selecting have those subjec- tive qualities that you just mentioned? Ms. Harris. Could you ask the question again? Mr. Scott. Is there any evaluation when your programs are eval- uated as to whether they are doing their job? Ms. HoLLis. There is no evaluation for that. Many times we will involve our human resource professional along with the interview process to ensure that it is being done in a validated way, but there is no evaluation process. Ms. Brummel. But we do provide a performance evaluation in our program that there is a 3-month evaluation, a 6-month evalua- tion, and we look at all the aspects of what we perceive to be a quality person in the classroom. Is that person doing the job, are they able to communicate with families, are they appropriate with children. So they are observed, there is dialogue. There is also the supportive training. If there are areas of concern, then we address that and develop a career development plan enabling that person to achieve their skills. One of the things I wanted to add to what we have been talking about is that I feel it is important to dialogue with the teacher preparation community, our colleges, letting them know what Head Start needs. I am on several advisory committees for early childhood education, and I am continually bringing up that we need beyond the typical childcare, daycare, nursery school teacher that when teachers come out of teacher preparation and they are looking for jobs, they need to understand what Head Start is about, and it is really surprising. We need to go out and be better PR people. Mr. Scott. Are you suggesting that our educational — that the colleges and universities, when they educate educators ought to have a specialty for educating high-risk or at-risk children, that that ought to be a specialty. Ms. Brummel. Yes. The new term that I just picked up is poten- tially achieving families and children, instead of labelling it high- risk. Mr. Scott. But that ought to be a specialty within education, frankly for which you ought to be paid more? Ms. Brummel. Right, or a specialty or a broadening. Often you will see one paragraph in a textbook dedicated to Head Start and what Head Start is about, and we are a very comprehensive pro- gram, and we are very dynamic, and I think that when you come 80 into the program, and either you have the spirit or you decide that it is not for you, and I think that we have several committed indi- viduals that are really committed to the program, and strive to become the very best they can for the children and families they serve. Mr. Scott. Let me turn to Mr. Marcussen. Mr. Marcussen. I have a piece of an answer to, I think, how we go about looking at quality, or what we do in that. I want to start by looking at what actually happens now. Currently, no grantee or delegate agency, in my knowledge, has ever gotten defunded be- cause they run a poor program. The only reasons that agencies get defunded is because they misuse the money, they didn't fill out the paperwork, or they didn't do the audit. Those are the things that are the deciding factors. Mr. Scott. So, if you go through the motions Mr. Marcussen. If you fill out the paperwork and you keep track of what you did with the money, you get your money next year, and the year after, and 20 years from now you will still have the money, and you may be the most mediocre program, the lousiest program in the State, but you are not going to lose your money. We need the outstanding agency that is doing a terrific job, and a mediocre agency that can't get it together to do a good program get treated the same way if they fill out the questionnaire the same way. Mr. Scott. The question is, how do you measure the difference, how can someone come in and measure, this is a mediocre pro- gram, and this is an excellent program? Mr. Marcussen. The counterpart I want to go with that is saying, in Head Start nationally we haven't even made an effort do that. There is no staff, there is no system, there is no standard. No nationwide task force has looked at that issue and developed stand- ards. There is no component of the Federal bureaucracy — there are no people in Health and Human Service that really try to do that. Mr. Scott. Would the gentleman yield? Mr. Ziegler says that he can do it. Have you read any of his arti- cles or his comments? Mr. Marcussen. I didn't like the last suggestion he made about turning it all over to school districts, I can tell you that. I think he has identified some problems, but I don't think his solution is a so- lution. It is very hard. The most difficult issue that Head Start and the entire child development field faces is how do you measure quality, and it is not something that we can sit here and, even with 1 hour or 2 hours, really dig into and talk about, and it is a prob- lem that people have tried to address, and they have run into real difficulty figuring out how to do that. I am not saying we shouldn't stay at the job. I just want to iden- tify how difficult it is. I think we have to keep working on it. We have to pursue, how do we measure quality, and then how do we begin to evaluate agencies on quality in terms of the outcomes with children and parents, and start differentiating how we treat agen- cies so that the agencies are quality agencies, are treated as such, and expansion dollars are directed at those agencies. Agencies that are having problems that are not delivering the quality services, even if they don't misuse the money and fill out the paperwork, 81 they get some assistance, but they are not rewarded for running a mediocre program. Mr. Scott. I think some of those measurements do exist. You have heard self-esteem is so vague and general that you can't measure it, but there are measurements, scientific, quantitative measurements of enhanced self-esteem, which is very much a com- ponent of Head Start. If we are not using them, or those measure- ments aren't fully developed, then maybe that is something we need to work on. Ms. Romo? Ms. Romo. Yes. I think a good program means when all the com- ponents are involved, when all the components work together, when the nurse, the social worker, the nutritionist work together. I just heard the teachers, the teachers' education, but I don't hear any other components, and I think we play a very important role in the program. Chairman Martinez. Mr. Scott, would you yield on that point? It isn't that we haven't been concerned with that before because, during the hearings that we held towards the markup of the amendment package we got passed in the last session of Congress, we realized that there was a lack of measurement of anything deal- ing with quality. So in the Act we asked the Secretary to conduct, through grants or contracts made or entered into with persons who have the qualifications specified in Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Subsec- tion B, a longitudinal study on the effects that participation in Head Start Programs has on the development of the participants of those programs and their families and, the most important part, the manner in which such effects are achieved. If we could figure that out, we could maybe set standards. Through that whole sec- tion, you will find that we lay out what we want to achieve, and most of it is how professional backgrounds in child development and those related fields actually achieve those desired results that we are looking for. So we did a very comprehensive section in that trying to get that. We asked for an interim report not later than January 1 of 1994, so even before we get to the reauthorization point in this, we will have that study in which we may then develop some standards for that reauthorization. Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott. Let me switch Ms. Brummel. Can I just make one more comment, we were talk- ing about quality. I think right now we do have two avenues to look at quality. One is the child development associate credential, which is the competency-based assessment of a teacher's ability or skill to provide quality services. Mr. Scott. What do you call that again? Ms. Brummel. Child development associate credential, CDA. Mr. Scott. That is a paper qualification? Ms. Brummel. Right, but it is competency-based. It is a self- study, and you go through that process. You have a validator, you have a parent. There is feedback. Mr. Scott. That is an evaluation of the teacher? Ms. Brummel. Right. Ms. HoLLis. A preparation. 82 Ms. Brummel. The other part of that is the National Association for the Education of Young Children has an accreditation process that is available to providers of early childhood services, and that is something that we might look at as a vehicle to look at what is quality going on on a day-to-day basis in the centers. Chairman Martinez. Again, I would like to interject. Mr. Scott. Okay. Chairman Martinez. Along those lines, in Section 648 of the Act, that is the Improvement Act, we require that the Secretary shall assure no later than September 30, 1994, each Head Start class- room in a center-based program is assigned one teacher who has: (a) a child development associate, CDA, credential that is appropri- ate to the age of the children being served in the center-based pro- gram; (b) State awarded certificate of preschool teachers that meets or exceeds the requirement for a child development associate cre- dential; (c) an associate, baccalaureate or advanced degree in early childhood education; or (d) a degree in the field related to early childhood education with experience in teaching preschool children and a State awarded certificate to teach in preschool programs. Mr. Marcussen. Mr. Chairman, did you say one per classroom? Mr. Scott. Per classroom. Ms. Harris. Chairman Martinez, my understanding on the State of California to get a childcare center permit, of which we all need to have, that is already a requirement for our teachers. So, for most of us, I am sure, we are meeting that requirement, not so much CDA, but they have the childcare center permit, so it is either/ or, and I have asked for some clarification on that standard from Washington, because I thought maybe it would impact assist- ant teachers, but right now they are saying that it is not, it is clearly for the teacher in the classroom. So we are, in the State of California, basically all meeting that because of that center permit requirement to operate. Mr. Scott. Let me change the subject just a minute. One of the things we are going to be looking into is funding a summer pro- gram. It seems to some of us that the ability to go through the summer and that additional benefit would add significantly to a child's development, not only from a positive point of view, but also it eliminates the retrogression that takes place over the summer, and that a funding of a summer program would be an extremely valuable addition to the programs. I would like some testimony on the record so that if anybody doubts that we can point to some testimony that we have gotten through the hearings. Does somebody want to comment on that? Ms. Harris. I will speak to that. Again, particularly in the com- munities that I serve, children being on a program for close — our program ends, because of funding. May 26, and resumes back the second week in September, so we are talking about 16 weeks where children are out of program. That has a tremendous impact for children in communities where there is so much that is going on that is of detriment or danger to their health and safety, and I feel that being involved in a child development program such as Head Start through the summer will help keep the families, the children, the staff, everyone focused on very positive initiatives. 83 Again, you have to look at studies. I am talking about this per- sonally with my own son who is in a year-round school and they are off for these strange block periods of time, and we are asking the same questions, have there been studies to show if children are out of school for 6 or 8 weeks are there really impacts on their edu- cational development. But here we are really looking, again, at the whole life enhancement, and the whole what is happening in our communities, and how we can help to further advance children's health and safety and social competence. Being out of program in many of these communities for the 16 weeks or 3 months is a crime. I just want to go on record as saying that. Mr. Scott. Any other comments? Ms. Brummel. I would say that the additional time would allow us also to do some follow-up. Many of our children need medical, dental services, and the extension through the summer will allow us to have that all put in place, immunizations, those kinds of things. So not only looking at the time that they are with us for additional socialization, but the opportunity to continue working with the family on these other issues is important. Ms. HoLLis. I would support both of those, but I would also like to say that we appreciate having the program quality and T&TA money tied in with that, that also allows us the opportunity to do some other developmental type of things with our staff during the summer period. Mr. Marcussen. We are in support of the extension through the summer. I would just like to add that I think that we do need to maintain a break in there because our staff, if we ran them through the whole summer right up to the start of the next school year, we would burn them out. So probably, my off-the-cuff guess, at least 3 weeks, maybe 4 weeks, but instead of 12 to 16 weeks off, we would drop it down to 3 to 4 weeks. Mr. Scott. Are you talking about 3 weeks in May or June, and another 3 weeks in August? Mr. Marcussen. No, just keep going through May, June, July and maybe like 3 or 4 weeks off in August. Mr. Scott. One other question, Mr. Marcussen, you talked about the home-based programs. Generally home-based education is not the preferred way of education, and the school-based system is gen- erally preferred. Can you give us a word or two about the effective- ness of the home-based care, or describe the home-based care a little bit? Mr. Marcussen. The parents coming into the program, almost all prefer or are requesting a center-based program instead of a home-based program. The main reason is that they understand what a center-based program is. They have never heard of a home- based program, and you can't choose and prefer something that you don't even know exists or know about. What we have found is, those parents who do go into the home-based program, within about 2 months, become strong advocates of the home-based pro- gram. They like it. One of the things that our home-based Mr. Scott. Can you describe the home-based program? Mr. Marcussen. Describe it, we employ teachers who are fully qualified to teach in the classroom with special emphasis on people 84 who have a social work orientation, so they are teacher/social workers. They primarily deliver the services by going — they have a caseload of 12 families. They go into the family's home, usually once a week, and do a iy2 hour program with the parents and child. The focus is on working with the parent to help the parent become a better teacher of the child and see themselves in that role. Mr. Scott. And those students stay at home all week and don't come to the center? Mr. Marcussen. They do not come to the center during the week. There are two socialization experiences. A minimum of two socialization experiences a month where that home-base teachers look at caseloads, and all those parents and children come togeth- er, whether it is a field trip at the library, at a classroom site that is available on a particular day, or at the park, or wherever. Mr. Scott. And then IV2 hours a week, and plus that socializa- tion gives those children the same kind of Head Start experience that those in the center get? Mr. Marcussen. I need to go back and look at what the focus of home-base is. The focus of home-base is working with the parent. You build the parent's skills. It is not 1 ¥2 hours with the child. It is iy2 hours of building the parent's skills, and working with the parent on things that they are going to be doing the rest of the week with the child. So that child is impacted for the entire week, but rather than the teacher delivering— directly working with the child, the teacher works with the parent. We actually don't refer to them as teachers, we call them parent- ing educators, and their focus is to educate the parent so that the parent is the full-time teacher of the child. Mr. Scott. And that is in lieu of Head Start, and it would seem to me that there would be many people who would feel that the child isn't getting as good an education as they would get if they could come to the center. Mr. Marcussen. It is not in lieu of Head Start. There are about five options within the Head Start Program. Mr. Scott. It is in lieu of the center-based program. Mr. Marcussen. It is in lieu of the center-based. You do not do both, you do one or the other. Mr. Scott. And has anybody evaluated that to see if the children do as well? Mr. Marcussen. I am not sure of a statistically valid research evaluation of the home-based program, no. Mr. Scott. Subjectively, does anybody think they do anywhere close to as well? Ms. HoLLis. You have to understand that home-based was origi- nally designed for rural communities where there were no facili- ties, and then it has since then expanded. In California, where space sometimes is a problem, home-based is a viable option. Mr. Scott. Are we talking about home-based because that is the best we can do under the circumstances, or because that is what people choose to do? Ms. HoLLis. It differs from program to program. Some people choose to do it. Some do it in lieu of expansion because facilities are not open, so they do home-based. 85 Mr. Scott. And that is the best you can do? Ms. HoLLis. At the time, yes. Ms. Brummel. In Kern County, we offer home-based. We offer it in some of the rural areas where we do not have the population that we could really financially sustain a center, but we also offer it in the metropolitan area. Often, because of a family's situation, they are not ready to enter into a center-based environment. They feel comfortable being at home. There are some needs there. We have found that it has been an incredible impact for the families because we look at all the components that are offered, not just education, but it really is very empowering to the parent, to the family, to develop skills in parenting, nutrition, social services, and so it is another option. I see it as very equal. One step further is, there is something that is now called the combination option, which is home-based and center-based blended because you take the socialization time. So there are lots of ways that we can reach families. I think we have talked about new tech- nology and television. By having a home educator come in and work directly with you as a parent to empower you, to help facili- tate, and really reinforce that the parent is the primary teacher and educator of that child for a lifetime, that reading to that child, working with that child, is going to go beyond the Head Start expe- rience, that it is going to carry that child on into the public school time, I think that is very valuable. We offer our parents, we go to them and say, "We have these two options, what is going to fit in your needs and your family," and we don't sell one better than the other. These are two options, two methods to serve you, just as we would offer full-day for some families, that would meet their need, center-based offers some needs, and I think home-based. So we try to really bring them forth as equal opportunities for families to enter into partnership with us with Head Start. Mr. Scott. For those who have access to a center-based program, you would view it as an equal service to the home-based and the center-based would be as good a service to the children? Ms. Brummel. I believe they are. Mr. Scott. One final one, and I am not sure whether this is a question or statement. Ms. Harris, you indicated that you have the Interagency Coordinating Council in the same program with Head Start? Ms. Harris. No. We work very closely with the Greater South Central Interagency Coordinating Council on initiatives around Public Law 99-457. They assisted us in funding a parent to actually start the family resource center this summer, and we also have staff that participate regularly in terms of collaborations with the service providers around serving children 0 to 5 at-risk. Mr. Scott. Your definition of children that can be served under that includes at-risk? Ms. Harris. Yes, under Public Law 99-457, yes. It is all children anywhere between 0 to 5 that are either developmentally delayed or who are at-risk with special conditions that may lead toward de- velopmental delay, and that is usually defined quite broadly. As a matter of fact, depending upon who you talk to, you will get multi- ple definitions. 86 Mr. Scott. Different States- Ms. Harris. Have different definitions? Mr. Scott, [continuing] do different definitions? Ms. Harris. Right. Mr. Scott. In Virginia, we are just doing the mandatory and not the optional coverages, and it seems to me that if we adopted the same thing California has apparently adopted that the marginal costs for those extra optional students would be relatively minimal compared to the mandatory students, and we can get quite a lot of benefit out of it, and it is interesting to see that that is wrapped into Head Start, because it is a lot of the overlapping population. Thank you. Chairman Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Scott. I think it has been a very interesting panel, and it has certainly added a lot to our knowledge and edification. In closing, I want to thank each of our witnesses today for their perceptive testimony and candid answers to the questions raised by me and my col- leagues. We appreciate the efforts you make to ensure that Head Start in these communities is successful and is able to accept new participants, and to continue to bring these necessary changes to the populace. Again, I want to express our gratitude to our host, Los Angeles County Board of Education, for providing this forum for this hear- ing. We have conducted a hearing here previously, and continue to be appreciative of the support that they have provided us. I also want to acknowledge the participation of my colleagues who have taken time from their very busy schedule to travel across this country. Mr. Scott coming all the way from Virginia, and Mr. Owens is originally from New York, although he came via Austin — no, San Antonio this time, but I do appreciate your coming that long way to participate in these hearings. We plan to hold another hearing in New York, in Mr. Owens' district, and we will be holding hearings in Washington and elsewhere in the next 18 months. While the hearings in Washington are very important, I for one, and I think my colleagues agree, believe that the viewpoint of people like yourselves, who represent the organizations on a local basis, is very important to us as legislators as we consider propos- als for adjustments and, from your testimony today, we can envi- sion that this one certainly needs some adjustments. The Head Start Program is perhaps the most popular program in the Federal Government. Certainly it enjoys a wide bipartisan sup- port on Capitol Hill, and I don't think it is just because it is a pov- erty program, or because it is about kids, I think that this program, after 28 years, has proven its worth, and that is the reason why it receives such wide support. Its successes are legion. It detractors are few, and its future, I be- lieve, is very bright, especially with the help of the members of my committee, those on this subcommittee, and those on the full com- mittee, and with your support at the local level, we will work to ensure the continued success of this program. 87 I want to thank you all again for being here today, and tell you that I appreciate it. My colleagues appreciate it, and Mr. Ford and his staff appreciate it. I thank you again. The committee stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the subcommittee recessed pursuant to call of the Chair.] [Additional material submitted for the record follows:] 88 Statement of Hortense Hunn, Executive Director, Preschool Services Department, San Bernardino County, California Honorable Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, it is a distinct pleasure and honor to respond to your invitation to share some of my views about Head Start. In order to briefly explain where I am coming from, I have been associated with Head Start since its humble beginnings some 28 years ago. For the past 23 years, I have been Executive Director of the Preschool Services Department, which currently serves about 3,500 Head Start children and their families who live in one of the geo- graphically largest and economically poorest counties in the United States. Thanks to the recently funded 1992 Head Start Improvement Act, we will be able to serve an additional 1,400 children and their impoverished families, beginning this Septem- ber. Furthermore, this year I have been serving as President of our State's Head Start Directors Association, which also informs the following opinions I shall ex- press in response to your gracious invitation to me to attend these hearings. As you know. Head Start is one of the few longtime survivors of the original OEO poverty programs to provide employment and needed services to impoverished fami- lies. There are numerous official fact sheets documenting Head Start's growth and development since its inception in 1965. I do not intend to reiterate the litany of glowing statistics which are readily available; suffice it to say that the National Head Start Program has grown from an "embryonic" program enrolling 561,000 children for about $96 million in the summer of 1965 to an "adolescent" program serving over 721,000 children and families for $2.7 billion in this present year. Mr. Chairman, we providers and the many recipients of Head Start Program serv- ices are extremely grateful for the recent increases in funding, most recently the additional $600 million for Program Year 1993 contained in the Head Start Im- provement Act developed by Representative Martinez's bipartisan committee and signed by President Bush on October 7, 1992. However, Head Start still only reaches about one third of the eligible children and families and the National Head Start Association would appreciate your considering some additional concerns. How have your services changed in the last several years? As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Head Start program is operated according to the National Head Start Program Performance Standards which were codified into law in 1984. These standards are quite stringent and detailed. They specify the mini- mum requirements for establishing and operating a quality comprehensive child de- velopment program. However, challenging problems arise in fulfilling these require- ments. An example is the problem of providing adequate health services to children. In past years, we have simply hired a group of pediatricians to provide all of the health examinations for the children in our programs. On its face, this arrangement looks like a feasible plan. However, the problem is that families do not get a chance to see a personal physician who will get to know the child and be able to provide services after the child leaves Head Start. An additional problem is that in many areas, doctors do not accept children who are on Medi-Cal or medicaid. Further- more, doctors have differing opinions about which services and immunizations should be provided to children. In what ways have recent expansions affected your program? Recent expansions, while requiring a great deal of work to implement, have all been positive for Head Start participants. Certainly, there are long waiting lists of children to get into the program; it is very difficult to find facilities that are afford- able, can be satisfactorily renovated to meet our requirements, and are located in the areas where the majority of eligible children live. What steps have you taken to ensure the quality of services you deliver given this expansion ? All Head Start programs are monitored yearly by internal and external review teams, using the standard On-Site Program Review Instrument. Participants are au- dited for fiscal responsibility by Federal and State auditors and independent audi- tors. Because of expansion, we have had to recruit and hire new staff. Any funds that can be found are used to provide training to both new and experienced staff. It is essential that new staff be trained in the philosophy, goals and objectives, and poli- cies of Head Start. They must have sound child development principles and be able to competently apply the curriculum methods and materials used by each Head Start program. In the San Bernardino County's program, we are fortunate to have management and field services staff who have many years of service and experience in Head 89 Start and have a good working knowledge of the performance standards, policies and curriculum. They greatly contribute to our ability to monitor ourselves and our contractors internally. How do you see future expansions affecting the way you deliver services? It is my opinion that over the last 28 years, Head Start has learned, grown and matured in many ways. Out of this experience, we have developed a set of practical performance standards that are being complied with throughout the country. The basic concepts and principles of Head Start are good and the same favorable out- comes should continue to be expected for future participants. This is to say that the basic program should remain the same. However, extra energy should be put into improving the administrative and man- agerial aspects of the program. Further expansion should not change the services that we deliver, but we must look at making administration and management more efficient and effective. Optimum growth and development of children and their fam- ilies are our business and should receive Head Start goods and services in a busi- nesslike manner with, of course, continued compassion. Mr. Chairman, much of Head Start's strength is in its ability to do grassroots work in communities and to involve parents in the program. Without these compo- nents. Head Start would lose its identity and become just another child development program. What trends do you see in the Head Start program that will require you to change the way you run your program? Mr. Chairman, we have spent the last 28 years making Head Start work. We have oftentimes worked under difficult conditions with meager budgets. Now that Head Start is receiving expansion support and is hopefully moving toward full funding, those of us who have stayed and worked with Head Start ask that we be allowed to complete the task that we undertook. Head Start has been criticized by some and others feel that they can do a better job. Some think that our salaries are too low and that Head Start does not attract the quality of employees that it should. We may agree with some of the criticism, but the people who made Head Start work are dedicated to children and families and the program. Head Start has not been able to compete with other employers. Now that the Congress and the administra- tion are giving Head Start a "New Start," we have a chance to make Head Start an even better start. Mr. Chairman, now that Head Start has matured within its own family, it must become a strong "adult" program in the modern world. I have suggested a need for improved administration and management in Head Start, which has always seen itself as a service provider. Head Start has always prided itself on providing services to children and families first and has given secondary attention to staffing and ad- ministration. The time has come for Head Start to enter into the computer and in- formation systems age. The classroom will always be the focal point of Head Start, but the auxiliary and support functions must be upgraded and automated, if the program is to continue expanding and still provide quality services to children and families. How do you coordinate with other Federal or State programs that also serve low- income children and their families? How can this coordination be facilitated at the Federal level? Mr. Chairman, Head Start has a long history of coordinating with other Federal and State programs. The program I represent has long participated in the Child and Adult Care Food Program through California's Department of Education, in coop- eration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We have had excellent relations with HUD in developing Head Start programs in several Federal housing projects. In San Bernardino County, we have even developed relations with the Department of the Army and established the first Head Start program on a military base, namely the Ft. Irwin Army Post. There are many other examples, too numerous to mention in this brief testimony. In the State of California, we have contracts with the Department of Education and operate Child Development and State Preschool programs which are co-located with Head Start programs. On a local level, we have both formal and informal arrangements with many pro- viders, such as the public schools, in working with children covered under Public Law 94-142 and subsequent legislation. Other local organizations willingly provide services to our participants; the public health department, literacy campaigns in public libraries, and developmental disabilities organizations are a few examples. BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY 90 3 9999 05982 297 1 In particular, we are pleased with our alliance with the Children's Network and the Department of Public Social Services. The Children's Network is a model pro- gram developed in San Bernardino County to bring all of the parties dealing with children under one umbrella and discuss issues confronting all children and fami- lies. The Greater Avenues to Independence [GAINS] program is sponsored by the Department of Public Social Services. Parents who are on welfare can have their children enrolled in Head Start while they are in job training. They (parents) can also be assigned to Head Start as a trainee, with a portion of their salary paid by DPSS. We have also built helpful linkages with local colleges and universities who help us meet some of our training, research, evaluation, and development needs. What changes would you make to the program to better serve the population? Mr. Chairman, some optimistic hopes for the next 5 years include: 1. Mandated Head Start appropriations will reach "full funding" for all eligible 4-year-olds, with increases of about $1 billion per year up to a total of $8 billion; 2. Head Start will have purchased/constructed many of its own state-of-the-art facilities; 3. Additional funding increases will be allocated for expansion of Head Start's infant and toddler programs [PCCs] to all Head Start Centers, thereby enabling them to serve needy families with children from birth to 5 years of age; 4. Every program will have access to staff development Teaching Centers, modeled after medical teaching hospi- tals, where the latest techniques and equipment are used to upgrade classroom and management practices; 5. Family Services Centers, addressing literacy, substance abuse, employment training will be integral components in every program; and, 6. University affiliation and degree-track programs for classroom and management personnel will be available to all. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for allowing me to testi- fy before your committee. I'd be pleased to answer any questions about my testimo- ny. o ftQ_qi7 n - q-^ (QA\ ISBN 0-16-041169-6 9 780160"41 1694 90 00